


shine a light through an open door

by openhearts



Category: Perfect Harmony (TV)
Genre: Canon Divergence, Developing Relationship, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Grief/Mourning, temporary roommates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-16
Updated: 2020-03-16
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:21:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 23,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23165395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/openhearts/pseuds/openhearts
Summary: "What?  It's just for a weekend.""Oh, okay, Miss Hospitality Ambassador, try this headline on for size: Recent Divorcee Ginny Hawlings Sends Son Off With Ex, Has An Entire Grown-Ass Man Over For A Weekend Slumber Party.  How's that hitcha?"Ginny pauses, her face going slack for a moment.  ". . . Oh."_This is what happens when I want to appropriate a Community storyline, namely Jeff Winger living in his car.  It got a little out of hand.Title from We Found Love by Rihanna
Relationships: Arthur Cochran/Ginny Hawlings
Comments: 1
Kudos: 19





	shine a light through an open door

**Author's Note:**

> Everything is canon EXCEPT the Adams/Arthur kiss and the Lexington Inn job offer, simply because I didn't feel like addressing them.
> 
> Content wise, this fic contains canon-typical alcohol use. There's also one brief facetious mention of suicidal ideation, message me if you'd like more info before reading!

“Good mornin’!” Ginny calls when the bell tinkles and Adams walks into the diner.

Adams doesn’t reply, just hurries around the counter, glancing over her shoulder a few times. “Did you see what’s goin’ on out there?”

Ginny squints out through the front windows but she doesn’t see anything out of the ordinary. Arthur’s just climbing out of his car at the usual time he arrives for breakfast most days.

“What?”

"Arthur is living in his car!” Adams whisper-shouts, right at Ginny’s elbow so she has to bob quickly out of the way when Ginny pivots with the pot of coffee she’d just brewed. 

Not that she goes out of her way, but if she remembers she makes a fresh pot for when Arthur gets there for breakfast, since he complains less when the coffee’s fresh. Slightly less.

“What are you talkin’ about?” Ginny asks, getting exasperated.

“He didn’t see me when I walked by but I looked in through his windows and he has got that car stuffed fuller than a Thanksgiving turkey, Ginny. He is  _ living _ in his  _ car _ .”

“But why, he has the houseboat?”

“That’s for you to find out.” Adams disappears to her office quicker than Ginny can react while she’s in the middle of pouring a cup for her least-favorite regular at the counter who always leaves at least six napkins full of lougies half-balled up around his plate.

The bell tinkles Arthur’s entrance and he raises his folded newspaper at Ginny in greeting on the way to his usual booth. She makes her way over to him, not so quickly that he suspects she hurried over - though he would probably like that - and not so slowly that he’ll be in a mood by the time she gets there.

“Mornin’,” she says brightly when she gets to his side. She gives him a quick once-over and notices his collar’s all wonky on one side and so’s his hair, two things which on Arthur are generally pretty neat.

“Morning,” he returns around a yawn, carefully adding cream and sugar to his cup from one side while Ginny pours the coffee in from the other. They've perfected the process by this point so he doesn't have to stir it afterward. 

“Ooh, somebody didn’t get enough shut-eye!” 

Ginny winks meaningfully, but Arthur only frowns up at her and nudges at his cup to get her to top it off. Ginny obliges and then stands waiting, hand on her hip. Arthur looks up at her, mug already held to his lips. 

“I’ll have my usual,” he says before taking a sip. “Ooh, that’s actually not horrible.”

“Usual, right. Everything’s usual then? Nothin’ un...usual?”

“. . . no? Thanks?”

Ginny stands there for a second longer trying to think of another question but she comes up short and throws up one hand before hurrying two booths away where she’s been getting flagged down since before she’d even gone over to Arthur’s to begin with.

Adams rolls her eyes and disappears back into her office when Ginny holds her hands up and mouths, “I got nothing!”

The next morning Ginny arrives at the Moonbow with the sunrise.

She greets Athanasios before going about her usual morning shift routine of turning on the dining room lights and starting the first round of coffee. She ducks into the ladies room to do her business and swears she hears voices out in the restaurant but when she comes out no one’s there. Next she pushes through the door to the men’s room to make sure there’s enough paper towels and soap and-

“ _ Arthur _ ? What are you  _ doin’ _ ?”

He frowns at her through the mirror, not pausing in buttoning up a wrinkled gray-striped dress shirt. “Undershirt-as-outerwear will never be in my sartorial lexicon," he answers drily.

“Why are you here before we’re even open for the day, and  _ why _ are you,” she whispers the word, “ _ undressed _ in the restroom?” Before he can answer she gasps to herself. “Adams was right, you’re livin’ in your car!”

“Adams said  _ what _ ?” Arthur turns from the mirror and proceeds to undo his belt and pants.

Ginny yelps and flings a hand up to cover her eyes.

“Relax, I’m tucking my shirt in,” he grumps. “Not like you haven’t seen me without pants before,” he adds.

“Not by choice!"

"Well, show up at a man's dwelling multiple times when he's in his boxer shorts, that's on you."

"This is not your place of dwelling!" 

" _ It's the bathroom _ !" Arthur argues back.

Ginny sighs and waits for the jingle of his belt buckling again before lowering her hand to her hip. “Well?” she asks impatiently.

“Well what, I tuck my shirts in and they all have sleeves. Again, Conley Fork hasn’t changed me that much and it never will.”

“ _ Why are you gettin’ dressed in the bathroom _ ?”

“I spilled gravy on my other shirt,” Arthur mumbles, buttoning one of his cuffs and  _ clearly _ lying through his teeth.

Ginny squints suspiciously. "White or brown?"

". . . Brown."

“HAH! Athanasios hasn't made the brown gravy yet today, where’d you get it?”

“That other diner across town?” he tries shiftily.

Ginny gasps again, “traiter!”

“Wait  _ is _ there another diner across town?” Arthur pauses to ask as he finishes his other cuff. “I thought my choices were just here or the bar.”

“It was actually one town over but right on the line, drove Adams crazy, so she bought the empty lot next door on the Conley Fork side and let Jerry Blevins hold all his pig markets there.”

Arthur grimaces in confusion. “What’s a pig market?”

Ginny tilts her head with an incredulous look. “How’d you think people buy pigs?”

Arthur blinks and shakes his head. “It may shock you to learn I’ve never before considered the logistics of swine breeding.” Ginny just rolls her eyes at him while he refolds his collar. “So wait, what happened to the other diner after the swine sabotage?”

“Oh it went out of business.”

“Fascinating. I’ll be on my way.”

Ginny ignores Arthur’s dismissal and gives him a look, tapping her foot and purposefully blocking his way out of the bathroom even as he picks up his bag and makes to leave.

“Nuh uh, mister,-"

"Doctor," he corrects automatically. 

She ignores him. "- don’t think you can distract me that easily, you’re not leavin’ this bathroom until I get a straight answer. Are you or are you not livin’ in your car?”

“I am not  _ living _ in my car, I’m temporarily  _ storing _ some of my belongings in it while I have a roof leak repaired.”

“And is one of those belongings your  _ self _ ?”

Arthur sighs, defeated. “Fine, I’m  _ sleeping _ in my car, are you satisfied?”

“Arthur!” When Ginny’s posture droops in pity Arthur takes the opportunity to shoulder past her through the doorway and to his usual booth. Ginny follows along at his heels and sits across from him, uninvited.

“Why wouldn’t you just ask for a place to stay? Any of us would’ve offered if we’d known.”

“Yeah, I know, that’s what I was trying to avoid.”

“But  _ why _ ?” Ginny shakes her head in confusion.

“Beeecause . . ." Arthur stumbles just slightly over his words, "I’m a grown man and I’m not going to  _ couch surf _ like some kind of derelict hippy.” He scoffs dramatically to finish.

Ginny studies him while he looks away, just for a second. Then she slaps her hands lightly on the tabletop.

"This is just silly, you are not sleepin’ in your car for one more night, you’re stayin’ at my house until your roof is fixed.”

“Ginny, you don’t have to-”

“Nuh-uh, not another word, I won’t hear it. Cash is with Wayne for the weekend anyway and I’m just flappin’ around in that big empty house like a bat in a tin bucket.”

“Why would a bat be in a- you know what don’t answer that, I don’t think I can handle any more Forkisms before coffee.”

Ginny sniffs and scoots out of the booth. As she goes for the coffee pot she mutters, “how  _ else _ d’you expect to catch a bat?”

Adams arrives while Ginny's filling Arthur's cup so after she puts his breakfast ticket in, Ginny runs back to the office where Adams is waiting expectantly. 

"He  _ is _ livin' in his car. The houseboat sprung a roof leak and he's havin' it fixed. But I think there's somethin'-"

" _ I knew it _ ," Adams interrupts. "Damn, he's gonna be in the worst mood come rehearsal if it's not fixed soon."

"Oh no he'll be fine, I told him he could come stay with me."

Adams stops short. "Girl you did what?"

"He's gonna stay at my house, Cash is off with Wayne anyway, it'd be silly not to. Besides, he really seems-"

"Ginny are you hearing yourself right now?

"What? It's just for a weekend."

"Oh, okay, Miss Hospitality Ambassador, try this headline on for size: Recent Divorcee Ginny Hawlings Sends Son Off With Ex, Has An Entire Grown-Ass Man Over For A Weekend Slumber Party. How's that hitcha?"

Ginny pauses, her face going slack for a moment. ". . . Oh."

"Yeah," Adams agrees.

"But it's  _ Arthur _ ."

"I know," Adams agrees again, her lip curled.

"Well you're the one who told me to find out what was goin' on," Ginny starts, but as soon as she does Adams holds her hands up. 

"Nah-ah, you invited him, he's your grown-ass problem. I just wanted the gossip, and I'm sure gonna get a lot of it now."

Adams waves Ginny off, and Ginny helplessly backs out of the office.

"But I just wanted to be hospitable! I don't want a grown-ass problem!"

Adams cackles as the door to the kitchen swings shut behind Ginny.

_

  
  


Arthur shifts his focus away from the prospect of a weekend of interrogation from Ginny to notations for an arrangement of Flanders Fields that they should be able to master for Memorial Day now that Regionals are behind them. As the morning rush picks up and the noise level builds he sets it aside and pulls out the crossword to avoid too much conversation with all the choir members who come and go throughout the morning - he still learns all about Dwayne, Wayne, and Cash's visit to the Muhammed Ali Center, Junior’s son’s fieldtrip to Newport Aquarium, and Quinn and Leanne’s plans to go to the Louisville Mega Cavern.

Apparently there are  _ places _ in Kentucky. Arthur quietly googles the cavern thing, then clicks away when he realizes it’s a family-friendly tourist trap. Links to Mammoth Caves in the same lists of state attractions catch his eye and he bookmarks them for later. Maybe they do private tours and he can just sit in a dark cave for a while.

He dawdles as long as possible over the crossword and by the time he’s laboriously filled in every blank, and finished his last coffee, Ginny has hung up her apron, cashed out her tips, and stands waiting pointedly at the register when he pays his bill. Maybe he can tip her a fifty to not be her usual concerned self for the next seventy-two hours or so. 

“Don’t think I don’t know you were thinkin’ about duckin’ out rather than take up a friend on some common hospitality.”

“Offering up your house up to your choral conductor with no notice is not really within the realm of  _ common _ hospitality, but if that’s what we’re going with . . .” 

Off her insistent look Arthur shrugs and turns them toward the door with a hand on her back. When they reach her pickup truck Ginny turns before she climbs in, squints at Arthur threateningly, and points. 

“If you drive off somewhere else I will hunt you down.”

“Okay there is a line between hospitality and kidnapping and your left eye is about to twitch right over it.”

Ginny drops the finger but eyes him no less intensely. “I am not going to let you go off by yourself to wallow in loneliness and misery.”

“Oh really?” Arthur asks challengingly, not bothering to challenge her basic premise of him being lonely and miserable. He’s learned by now to pick his battles with Ginny.

“Yeah,” Ginny shoots back stubbornly, sticking her chin out.

“Are you gonna liberal talk therapy it out of me? Is that your ultimate kidnapping goal?”

"I think there’s more goin’ on than just a leak in the roof. And if the tables were turned you know you'd never let me get away with hidin’ away like you're tryin' to." She shakes her head and adds softly, “It’s like you were finally out in the light and those dark clouds are all comin’ back again.”

Arthur swallows quickly before pulling up a scoff. “I’ve been sleeping in my car  _ in Kentucky _ for two nights, Ginny, of course I’m  _ sad _ .”

Ginny doesn’t buy it and they both know it but she lets it lie and gets in her truck, leaving Arthur to follow her home.

“You should set down while I get Cash’s room ready, then you can bring your things in,” Ginny orders, her voice strained as she pulls off her boots just inside the door.

“I should  _ set _ ?” Arthur repeats. “Boy, playing hostess really turns your Southern up to eleven.”

“ _ Fine _ ,” she says, belatedly trying to reign in her drawl and failing, “then you can put yourself to use and help change the bed. You'll find extra sheets in the linen closet at the end of the hall.”

Arthur hangs up his computer bag next to her purse and gamely follows her down the hall past a bathroom - shared, he deduces by the presence of a little tray of perfume and lotions on the counter alongside a Captain America toothbrush - and Cash’s room, which is decorated as much in camouflage as it is with UK paraphernalia. Ginny's already stripping the twin bed so Arthur continues on down the hall.

The first door Arthur opens is to Ginny’s bedroom - bright, persistently floral, and a little bit chaotic, just like her. He ducks back out and finds the linen closet and sheets - worn thin and scattered with a faded print of Peanuts characters, but it’s not car upholstery, so he’ll bite his tongue - and brings them back to Cash’s room.

"I saw you lookin' in my bedroom."

Ginny flaps the flat sheet so it billows right into Arthur’s face and gives him a shrewd little smile when he tilts his head at her wordlessly as the sheet settles into place. 

“You kidnapped, sorry,  _ forcefully hosted _ me, don't be so surprised when I try to identify all possible escape routes.”

Ginny gives him a look and tosses a pillowcase at him to put on while she spreads out a blanket and quilt.

“There,” she announces when they’re finished, hands on her hips in satisfaction. “You hungry? You must be, all you had was coffee and toast, honestly Arthur I don’t know how a man survives on as much coffee as you drink.”

“This is great, I feel so welcomed,” Arthur deadpans. “Actually, is it alright if I bring the valuables in from my car so Jax can't break in and hold them hostage to get me to stay with him?"

"You would not!" Ginny protests indignantly.

Arthur raises an eyebrow, studying her. "Listen I know I’m handsome, charming, and generally the best, but that’s a little . . . well. Even for you.”

“What’s that mean?” she asks, sounding offended already on principal. 

“Come on, you’re a way bigger suck up than Jax. At least he wants to be Jesus’s pet more than teacher’s pet.”

“I  _ know _ you did not just compare yourself to Jesus. Come on, I'll open the garage for you."

“Still afraid I’ll make a run for it if you let me out of your sight?”

"Ha! Like I couldn't outrun you."

Arthur ducks around her without warning and calls over his shoulder, "Keep telling yourself that!"

Dragging everything Arthur had rescued from the even-damper-than-usual houseboat out of his car and into Ginny's garage takes a while. By the end he's regretting brushing off her first offer to help. He'd ditched his usual blazer and scarf already on the drive over and now untucks his shirt and rolls up his sleeves too.

He's got his glasses in one hand, wiping sweat off his brow with the other when the door from the garage into the house opens and Ginny sticks her head out.

"Hey, real quick," he says, before she can say anything, "am I seeing things, or is there an old woman looking at your house with binoculars from that window across the street."

Ginny sighs as she steps into the garage. "Millie doesn't mean any harm, her eyesight's been goin' for years."

"So she's surveilling your house but it's okay because she needs glasses?"

"It's just  _ Millie _ ," Ginny repeats, as if it's an explanation. "Hey, so, did I remember to tell you you're not gonna want to leave anything out here overnight that might get damaged by a snake livin' in it? Cuz . . . you’re not."

" _ Again _ ?" Arthur asks incredulously. He just put his glasses back on but now he has to push them up his forehead so he can rub his eyes in annoyance. "You didn't let Wayne write snake boarding alimony rights into the divorce, did you?"

"No!" She answers defensively. "There was just one or two he never did find and sometimes I hear kinda slitherin' noises out here at night."

"You should call an exterminator," he points out. He follows Ginny's eyeline around when she peeks cautiously into some dark snake-home-y-looking corners.

"Closest we’ve got to an exterminator is Wayne’s cousin Scooter’s wife Brandy. She does taxidermy, she’s real good, won awards and everything.”

". . . Sometimes I wish I still had the capacity to be shocked at this place."

“Oh come on, we’ll just put everything in the livin' room, here I’ll help.” 

Ginny picks up an armload of his stuff and takes it inside with her, leaving Arthur to follow. He sighs and forces himself to pick up a garbage bag of clothes and drag it in behind him.

They go back and forth like that until Arthur is hauling the last box in and finds Ginny in the living room with a caught out expression, his violin out of its case and cradled in her hands.

"Sorry, I'm sorry, I-"

Arthur shrugs it off. "It's fine. You play?"

" _ Me _ ?” Ginny giggles nervously, “No, I took piano. Well, before my dad left I did, after that we couldn't afford it. Anyway, we got a lot more fiddle players in Conley Fork than violin players."

"Violin and fiddle are the same instrument."

Ginny's eyes bug out and her mouth drops open in disbelief. "They are not! This can't be a fiddle."

"Well, you’re right,  _ that _ is not a fiddle because it's mine and I play Mozart, Tchaikovsky, and Schubert. If you play The Devil Went Down to Georgia on it, it’s a fiddle.”

"You mean to tell me that Bobby Meadows, the hottest guy in the Second First youth group, who I was too tongue tied around to sign up for lessons when he  _ taught violin _ " - she implies finger quotes with derisive vehemence - "was nothin' but a dang  _ fiddle picker? _ "

"First of all that’s a great insult, I'm using that. And second, yes, Bobby Meadows was nothing but a  _ fiddle picker _ . Ugh, it’s so good, it sounds  _ vile _ ."

"Son of a gun," Ginny mutters, staring down at the instrument with new eyes. She looks up and holds the violin out to him. "Play somethin’?”

Arthur takes it from her, warily amused at this suddenly revealed deep-seated special interest.

Ginny takes a seat on her sofa. "Dealer's choice," she adds generously, motioning him over to centerstage on the other side of her coffee table.

Arthur retrieves the bow and resin from the case and rubs down the bow quickly, then raises the instrument to his shoulder, arranges his fingertips on the strings, and plays.

There’s nothing else to play for Ginny but  _ Ave Maria _ \- it’s as pretty a melody on his strings as it is in her bright soprano, and he’s not going to play some plebeian generic minuet for Ginny who has apparently been yearning for a private violin concert since high school. Schubert's arrangement carries the added benefit of being easy enough that he can play it confidently even though he's out of practice. 

Ginny recognizes it from the second note and lights up, her hands clasped beneath her chin when he catches her eye and grins. He shows off a little, slurring through some of the note changes and holding a few beats longer than he could if he had the traditional piano accompaniment moving along underneath. When he can't hold out the final note any longer and lowers the bow Ginny jumps up and bursts into applause as he takes a solemn bow. 

"Wanna try?" Arthur asks, holding out the violin and bow toward her.

"Nonono, no no, no I couldn't, I got butter fingers, I'd probably pluck a string clear off and it'd sound like a dyin' cat or somethin', are you hungry?”

Arthur tilts his head. Ginny guffaws nervously, her smile frozen in something resembling panic.

"Woo, I’m starvin’, I’m gonna start dinner okay thanks again!" she says all in one sentence before ducking past Arthur out of the room.

“You could at least learn the piano accompaniment, it’s easy!” he calls after her. “I’d like to see Magnus and Kimmy Bell pull that off,” he mutters to himself as he sets the violin and bow carefully back in their case and closes it up.

_

  
  


“Oh my god,” Arthur mumbles, mouth full. “This is so good it’s almost worth the horror of watching you make it.”

Ginny is seriously considering taking her plate and eating in her truck. Maybe sleeping there too. Instead she washes down a bite of green beans - which Arthur had obediently snapped the ends off of while she’d made the chicken - with another sip of white wine from the box in her fridge.

“They don’t have beer can chicken at Princeton?”

“Listen back to what you just said in your mind, I’ll wait.” He does, before going on, “No, the method of violating a whole chicken on an open can of Budweiser and then slathering it in butter hadn’t made it to my neck of the woods before I left.”

“Well they don’t know what they’re missin’.”

“Damn right,” Arthur agrees.

Ginny smiles down at her own plate, flattered. Wayne had always raved over her chicken but, well, he's Wayne. Ginny takes another sip of wine, already feeling a little bit of a buzz. The wine was meant to settle her insides but so far it's only made her slippery thoughts slipperier. 

Arthur picks up a stray bite of chicken when it slips from his fork, eats it with his fingers, licks them, and “mm’s” in satisfaction.

Ginny knocks back the rest of her glass and offers them both refills, not waiting for Arthur’s answer before snatching up his glass and taking them both to the fridge where she can hide for a few seconds.

The thing is Ginny can’t help but be, as her GramGram would disapprovingly put it,  _ pie-eyed _ over Arthur suddenly if he’s going to go around  _ playing a violin _ in her own house with no warning. Except that she asked him to. It’s a response ingrained in her since she was fourteen years old and Bobby Meadows played Amazing Grace for the offertory. That Sunday marked the first time Ginny had ever had impure thoughts in church.

Fast-forward to tonight, the moment Ginny saw Arthur’s violin case in her living room next to a box of vinyl records - of course Arthur has a vinyl record collection - and she’d become like a woman possessed. She’d never held a violin before. At least she hadn't choked on her own spit when she realized Arthur was playing  _ Ave Maria _ for her.

It's not that she had never realized - even before Adams pointed out the situation that morning - that Arthur is a man, because obviously. But now the Arthur that Ginny already knew is also  _ entire grown-ass man _ Arthur who plays the frickin’ violin and makes sex noises about her chicken. All of it has got her feeling self-conscious and Arthur-conscious and Arthur-and-Ginny-conscious in a way she was not prepared to deal with.

By the time she's drunk all her wine - again - and they’re both finished eating, Ginny’s starting to wonder what she’ll  _ do _ for the evening before it’s an acceptable time to go to bed - she and Arthur have never really . . . hung out for very long when they weren’t at rehearsal, the Moonbow, or otherwise surrounded by people, so she’s not sure what to expect.

What she certainly doesn’t expect is for Arthur to shoulder up beside her at the kitchen sink with a dish towel and take a just-washed plate from her hand without saying a word. Ginny purses her lips around a smile and picks up the next dirty plate.

“Here I thought you didn’t know how to wash a dish. I  _ have _ seen your kitchen, you know.”

“I’m not washing, I’m drying,” he answers automatically, not even looking up.

Ginny huffs in amused exasperation. “Do you ever not have to have the last word?”

“Nope.” 

He glances over at her, raised eyebrows and a smile, and she nudges him with an elbow before picking up another plate. 

"Are you havin' Warren Douglas or Warren Daughtry fix your roof?"

"Those are two different people? I thought Yelp made a typo."

"Is he a tall fella skinnier'n a bean pole or a tall fella bigger'n a house?"

"House. Definitely house."

"Daughtry then. He say how long it'll take?"

"Why, are you regretting your hospitality already?"

"Course not! This is great! We got violins and chicken!" Ginny tries to reel it back in but it's too late; her nervousness is creeping back in.

"Suuure," Arthur agrees, eyebrow raised in suspicion.

“And how’s it goin’ with avoiding dealin’ with what’s really goin’ on?” she asks casually, hoping to catch him off-guard. It's happened before, once or twice.

“I am dealing with it, Warren The Giant is writing an estimate as we speak.”

“You know what I mean,” Ginny catches his eye and hands over a glass for Arthur to dry.

“I don’t think  _ you _ know what you mean,” he shoots back, and she can see he’s ramping up into debate mode. “What kind of emotional metaphor is there to make for a roof leak?”

“It’s not the roof, it’s you sleepin’ in your car for two nights instead of just tellin’ me-”

“Ah ha ha, okay, I see. It’s not telling  _ you _ , that’s the problem. You really do have to be the favorite, don't you?”

Ginny shakes her head, willing away the dark blush she can feel spreading down her neck and scrubbing with her thumbnail at a spot on the blade of her carving knife. 

“Don’t do that.”

“What, be insightful? Sorry, no can do, comes with the territory of  _ me _ . Tell me, how is my roof leak somehow your problem?”

Ginny meets his eyes steadily before she sets the carving knife down gently in his side of the sink rather than hand it to him. 

“You don’t get to turn this around on me like it’s my fault you’re hidin’ something from a friend who cares about you.”

Arthur stares her down for another long moment. Finally he sighs and sets a fork in the drying rack. He turns and leans back against the counter facing away from the sink, his arms folded and shoulders slumped. Ginny stays where she is, hands in the dishwater getting pruny.

“There is actually a roof leak,” he starts. “Warren What’s-his-name came to check it out. Turns out the whole place is lousy with asbestos. And now probably mold. Well.  _ More _ mold.”

“How long’s that take to fix?”

“It can’t be fixed, Ginny. I can’t live there anymore. Damn thing probably has to be burned down or something. I have to go back tomorrow to find out.”

“Oh, Arthur. I’m so sorry.” Ginny turns from the sink toward him. She wants to hug him but her hands are wet and soapy, and he has the towel.

He shrugs dismissively, like he’s dislodging the hug he knows she wants to be giving him. “The thing that really sucks is now I have to find another place to live that screams,  _ don't talk to me _ with the same virile foreboding as a dilapidated houseboat docked off a dead end road. Even here that's not going to be easy."

He glances over and catches her eye with a rueful little smile, and she tries to return it without looking too sad but she knows she fails.

"You should ask Adams."

"To help me move? Have you met Adams? Have you met  _ me _ ?"

"No I mean about a place to move to,” Ginny interrupts. “She knows all about who's buyin' and sellin' in Conley Fork."

Arthur grunts an acknowledgement. "Hey," Arthur nudges her gently with his elbow. "Sorry."

"I forgive you," Ginny answers softly, and she looks up and smiles for real, even if it is a little forced. Then she sets her jaw and shakes the water off her hands decisively. "And until you do find a place you can stay here. I mean it."

Arthur shakes his head. "Doesn't Cash get back on Monday?"

Ginny shrugs, feeling that blush creep up again. "We'll figure it out."

Arthur shrugs back in a way that she knows doesn’t mean he’s agreeing, but he’s not arguing either. He pulls the towel off his shoulder and holds it out for her to dry her hands on. When she's done she hands it back and Arthur balls it up and free throws it toward the counter like a basketball with a whispered, "swish!"

_

  
  


After the dishes are done Ginny disappears, apparently under the impression that Arthur didn’t notice her filling a tall blue plastic tumbler with more boxed wine, but he’s not going to go digging around about that quite yet. Even if she did just finagle answers out of him he hadn’t planned on giving. 

He can hear her humming faintly from the direction of her bedroom, so Arthur goes back to the living room, unearths his bottle of bourbon, and takes a glug straight from the bottle before he collapses on the sofa. During dinner he’d only gotten down one generous pour of the sugary vinegar Ginny insists is wine; he’ll be damned if he’s going to spend his night sober with a drunk Ginny.

Ginny comes in a minute later, still with her blue plastic tumbler and, Arthur notes, wearing tiny pink camouflage shorts. With a differently-camouflage sweatshirt. Because Kentucky.

Ginny tugs on the shorts on her way over to the sofa where she flops down not all the way at one side, but with a decent distance between them. Arthur respectfully averts his eyes when she leans over to grab the remotes from the side table at her end of the sofa.

“You know I have cups,” Ginny says, glancing sidelong at the bottle as she turns on the TV.

“If I filled one of those I’d be dead from alcohol poisoning before the night is through,” Arthur points out, eyeing the size of hers.

Ginny gives him a slitted-eye glare over the side as she takes a drink. “It’s not  _ full _ ,” she defends once she’s swallowed.

“Not any _ more _ . I think that would actually hold the whole bottle if I tried,” Arthur teases, holding it up.

“That bottle isn’t full either,” Ginny points out primly.

"What are we watching?" Arthur asks to change the subject.

"AGT," Ginny answers as she hits play on it from her DVR.

"Ugh," Arthur mutters. "The premise that America as a whole has Got Talent is fatally flawed."

"Some of ‘em are really good!”

Arthur gives her a  _ really? _ look and Ginny gives him one back. "Oh, poo, just drink your bourbon and watch."

“Blecgh,” he grumbles, deciding to leave it at that. 

He’ll probably doze off soon enough anyway after two shitty night’s sleep in his car and dragging all his stuff out of it today. Ginny scoots over to lean her back against the opposite arm and stretch her legs out across the sofa with her ankles crossed. Arthur looks over and raises his eyebrows but says nothing.

Ginny's legs out of her usual jeans and modestly long skirts are- 

"What?" She asks.

"Hm?"

"You keep lookin’ over here." Ginny eyes him expectantly.

So Drunk Ginny will both wear tiny shorts and go fishing for opinions about them. Huh. But it's not like Ginny’s ever been shy about wanting his attention, just not this kind in particular. Arthur stares her dead in the eyes without a flicker of movement for a second, then looks back to the TV. 

"Nothing," he answers.

"Hm," she hums in a squeak.

He glances over again just to call her bluff - he's known her long enough, Ginny can't bluff for shit - and sure enough she's looking at the TV but blushing a brilliant pink that almost matches the shorts. Arthur grins to himself and slouches down to get more comfortable, puts a socked foot up on the edge of her coffee table.

She's fast forwarded to the first act, a wife and husband who sing "I Got You Babe" in full Sonny and Cher costume, cross-dressed. 

"Ooh, we should-"

"No."

“Rude,” Ginny mumbles before another sip of wine. 

Arthur snorts out a laugh and Ginny tries to glare at him but she ends up laughing too. She stretches one bare leg out to kick at him so he grabs her ankle and holds it for a second until she shies away.

When both of their laughter is dying off Ginny sets her foot back slowly this time, pressed against the side of his thigh. There’s a beat of silence between them with just the sound of the crowd cheering for a dance crew on the TV. Arthur sets his hand back on her ankle, warm and comfortable. Ginny's got her eyes glued to the TV when Arthur turns his head, leaned against the back of the sofa, and looks at her. He sweeps his thumb back and forth a few times and she worms her foot back and forth in response. He can't help but huff out another laugh. Ginny purses her lips but she's smiling irrepressibly through it.

Arthur looks back to the TV and takes another sip of bourbon.

_

  
  


She could stay like this, Ginny thinks. She and Arthur could just hang out and watch AGT. She has absolutely no idea what the current act is or why it involves frog costumes but the fact that Arthur hasn’t commented on it yet is . . . something. Makes her think maybe he’s a little bit distracted too; he's rubbing her skin softly with his thumb again, back and forth, back and forth.

She  _ could _ stay like this, slowly losing her mind over some PG-rated ankle-touching that would barely make Jax blush. Or, Ginny thinks, with an inspired and single-minded focus, she could crawl across the sofa and jump Arthur’s bones. It would be totally fine, not weird or sudden at all. Maybe she could get him to play the violin during.

Lord have mercy.

Her legs are cold. Shorts had seemed like a fine idea when she was changing out of her work clothes, but then she'd been pretty deep into her night wine - different from dinner wine even though they come from the same box - by then. She could get up and put on pants but that would just make everything weird. Let Arthur get hot and bothered over her legs, serves him right for owning a violin without issuing a warning. She can still kind of sense it sitting in its case in the corner.

There's a blanket on the back of the sofa, but if she gets it everything will get discombobulated and whatever got them into this position might go away and it's - well it’s nice. She wouldn’t mind oozing across the rest of the space between them and just curling up with him over there. He looks comfy and sleepy and warm, like she’d feel if her nerve endings weren’t all lit up. He looks like he’d let her curl up with him.

The show goes on and she’s annoyed that there are a lot of duds in this episode; it makes it seem like Arthur was right. 

“Hey,” Arthur says suddenly, his fingertips tickling at her ankle like he's trying to get her attention, as if a significant portion of her attention isn’t already zeroed in on every cell of her skin he's touching.

“Yeah?” Ginny won’t let herself look over because Lord knows what her face even looks like right now.

“Hey,” he says again, insistently, so she does finally look over.

He looks drunk, maybe even drunker than she feels which is  _ quite _ . His eyes look sad, and he’s got the bottle of bourbon kind of clutched to his chest. And he’s still tracing around on her skin - arms-crossed, hands-in-his-pockets, barely-returns-a-hug Arthur, really - like he doesn't even realize he's doing it.

“Thanks,” he says quietly. “This,” he motions around the room with the bottle in his hand, seeming to mean the house, the food, maybe sharing her sofa too, “it’s nice.”

Ginny swallows and just nods jerkily.

This isn’t what she meant by hospitality. It also isn’t particularly what she thought a  _ grown-ass problem _ would be, given that except for the alcohol it’s all barely past G-rated.

On TV another act comes up and Arthur seems like he’s watching again, his attention not on her quite so fully. Ginny watches the side of his face and thinks.

She keeps debating back and forth, her drunk brain filling up with all the weirdness Adams had put into her world that morning; with the sudden hyper-awareness of Arthur and how she and Arthur are with each other; that there’s even a she-and-Arthur to be considered. She’d almost rather go back to the short time that morning after Arthur said he’d come stay with her and before Adams had made it sound like a  _ thing _ .

Does ankle-touching count as a thing? Adams would laugh at her for thinking so, but Ginny bets Karla would totally see her point. She probably wouldn’t ask Leann. She’s a little scared of Leann.

Ginny comes to the end of her wine and sincerely thinks about going to get more, but. She doesn’t want to. She pulls her legs from Arthur’s loose resting grasp to half-stand and put her cup on the coffee table, then she sits back down way closer to him than before, right up next to him. Almost touching. He’s watching her, looking cautious but not alarmed.

“Hey,” she says.

“Hey?” he asks back.

“Yeah,” she says, breaking into a nervous little smile. 

She picks up his hand resting on the sofa, loops his arm up around her shoulders, and curls against his side with her head at his shoulder. He’s tense and shifty for a moment and that makes her tense, but then she realizes he’s just leaning over to put the bottle of bourbon on the side table. Then he sits back and Ginny sighs, tense all over again because once they’re both settled in Arthur’s got a handful of her bare thigh. Which he does  _ not _ shy away from. He just keeps on tracing mindless patterns over her skin.

She gets chicken skin because it tickles a little and he must notice because he laughs softly, presses his hand flat like he wants to feel it before he goes back to tracing. Up, up to the hem of her shorts which are not anywhere near a modest length and then - Ginny stops breathing - just barely underneath with the flats of his fingernails.

If you paid her a million dollars, Ginny could not tell you one single thing happening on her TV right now. It’s a different show and she doesn’t even know how it started or when AGT ended. Ginny’s going to pass out on her own sofa from having her leg touched. Honestly.

After awhile of nothing but his fingertips drifting and tracing they slow and still on Ginny's skin and it's just another spot of warmth wrapping them together. Arthur's breathing deepens - neither of them have said anything for a long time. Eventually the wine and the passing hour and Arthur's steady breathing lull Ginny's brain into quiet and she drifts off to sleep.

_

  
  


When Arthur wakes up later it's fully dark outside and the TV has gone dark, black screen barely casting light. He's stretched out on the sofa and Ginny is curled around and on top of him - head on his chest, arm across his middle, and one long bare leg tucked between his.

He's still a little drunk and between that and Ginny's warm weight draped over him he doesn't try much to think his way out of whatever it is they're doing.

He's drifting back to sleep when his brain jolts his body awake suddenly and it startles Ginny awake too. She groans, tenses, and pushes herself up with a hand on his chest to look down at him through the dark.

"Oh," she says softly, like she's remembering how they got here.

"Hi," he says, voice gone raspy from bourbon and disuse.

Ginny smiles and kind of glances back over the both of them, then back up to his face with a questioning little look.

"I haven't slept in a bed in two days," he reminds, heading off any suggestions she might have about just going back to sleep right where they are.

"Well whose fault was that," she grumbles at him good-naturedly. She drops her forehead to his chest and yawns deeply. Arthur's arms tighten around her of their own accord. Maybe staying where they are wouldn't be so bad.

"C'mon," Ginny murmurs sleepily, and carefully gets up, leaving all the parts where she'd been laying on him too light and cool.

Arthur follows, and realizes when they reach the mouth of the hallway to the bedrooms that she's leading him along by the hand with their fingers tangled together. His head clears suddenly, enough to pause anyway.

"Hey, wait. Wait," he tugs on her hand and when she stops and turns back he shakes his head.

"I didn't mean-" he flicks his eyes down the hallway to her bedroom door and Ginny glances that way too. "What are we doing?" he finishes.

She turns back to him and then looks down at their hands still linked, fingers laced together somehow. She comes a step closer. "We could just . . . if you  _ wanted _ , I mean-"

"I think you're still drunk," he cuts in before Ginny can drunk-logic him into an actual bed with her. "I am . . . definitely still drunk."

Ginny lolls her head to one side and leans into him, smiling as if his objections are somehow quaint. But then she looks up and the smile dims and changes into something expectant but unsure. Like earlier on the sofa, her bare legs stretched out between them, insisting he  _ say _ she'd caught every kind of his attention. 

Arthur squeezes her hand and swings it back and forth a little, leans down until his forehead touches hers.

"'S very hospitable of you," he slurs, glossing over the question of what exactly she'd been suggesting. They both breathe out a little laugh before he straightens up again. He always forgets how short she is out of shoes.

Ginny grins up at him, that exasperated fond one he always has to look away from. But he doesn't. They just stay like that for a long time, hands still entwined, closer than toe to toe. Too long to ignore it, to pretend it's nothing at all. He's just trying to figure out what to say, what to do to let them both out of it when Ginny rests a steadying hand on his shoulder, goes up to her tiptoes, and just barely kisses him. Lips parted, breathy and delicate, every movement slow and lingering.

"'Night, Arthur," she whispers, and then she pulls away and leaves him in the hallway, her bedroom door left open just a crack so he can hear her bedsprings creak when she crawls in.

_

  
  


Ginny rolls over in bed and stretches. The sun is bright through her windows, way brighter than it should be if she'd woken up with her alarm. She's hot, and she sits up and wrestles out of her hoody, pushes her hands through her hair, and looks around her room for a moment before stretching over to her bedside table for her phone. She can't remember the last time she slept til nine-thirty in the morning. She's also got a text message from Arthur from eight a.m. 

  * Dealing with the boat. Back later.



It seems weirdly considerate, for Arthur. She wouldn't have been surprised if he'd just left, since he'd already said last night that was what he was doing today. It would have been reason enough for him to leave without a word even if they hadn't gotten drunk and done leg touching and fallen asleep together and Ginny hadn't  _ kissed him _ the night before. 

She purses her lips and frets over what to reply, finally settling on two sadface emojis and a thumbs up, hopefully communicating that her sadness is over what’s occupying his day, and not that he’d left at all. Then she adds,

  * I'm at the Moonbow til 3:30. Back for dinner?



She types “home” instead of “back” first but catches herself quickly and fixes it. His message pings back immediately:

  * Is there leftover chicken?



Ginny smiles.

  * Plenty



Arthur replies:

  * Then yes



She rolls her eyes - he  _ would _ pretend that he's only coming back depending on the menu when they both know all his stuff is still sitting in her living room right now. 

She drops her phone on the sheets, covers her face with her hands, and groans.

At least she didn't kiss him with tongue.  _ That _ would probably make things weird. Maybe no-tongue kissing doesn't count after highschool. Ginny thinks of the list of men she's kissed, then adds Arthur on at the end. Most of the list is actually teenage boys from before she got pregnant and married anyway. She accidentally imagines them all lined up like some kind of messed up reality show and it makes her feel so thrilled with hot nervous energy that she flops back on her bed.

“Oh fudge,” she sighs.

When she gets to the Moonbow she's halfway through tying on her apron, lost in thought when Adams suddenly appears at her side.

"You seem out of sorts," Adams points out, sounding amused. "How's your  _ houseguest _ ?"

"What? Oh you mean Arthur. He's fine why wouldn't he be? I mean I'm fine, why wouldn't I be?"

She can  _ feel _ Adams raising her eyebrow even though she's refusing to look.

"Okay," Adams says, unconvinced. "So everything went  _ fine _ when you two were moving all his earthly belongings into your garage together?"

"Dang that Millie Barnes! One of these days I'm gonna go next door and pry those binoculars right out of her bony old hands." 

Adams cackles. "Come on, Millie's gotta get her kicks just like the rest of us. I gotta say, watching Arthur Cochran do any kind of manual labor is on my bucket list too. Just for very different reasons than Millie's."

"Ew," Ginny laughs unconvincingly. She takes the Manager pin from Adams and pins it under her embroidered name, then smooths down her shirt, and presents herself to Adams. "Okay. Ready to Manage!"

"Mhm," Adams answers, looking at Ginny with narrowed eyes. "If Arthur's only staying with you for the weekend, why's all his stuff in your house?"

"What? Oh it's just stuff he didn't wanna leave in his car. Vinyl records-" Ginny rolls her eyes along with Adams and mouths  _ I know _ \- "and his clothes of course, he needs them, andhisviolin okay you git, don't be late for your meetin'!"

"Did you say  _ violin _ ?!" Adams hisses.

"No!" Ginny lies, "It's not even a violin it's a fiddle! Did you know those are the same thing? They are  _ the same thing _ , I mean can you-"

"Ginny, what if he  _ plays _ it while he's there? You know how you get about violins."

Ginny chews her thumbnail and eyes Adams shiftily, who gasps, "He did not!"

Adams grabs Ginny by the arms and forcibly pushes her down the back hall to her office, where she sits them on the sofa.

"Ginny, no."

"No what? It's fine! I'm  _ fine _ ."

"Ginny." Adams holds up a finger like she's scolding a dog. " _ No _ . I know way more than I want to about your violin kink."

"I told you that in confidence and I thought we agreed you would never bring it up again," Ginny whispers through gritted teeth.

"And I didn't, until now, when you are at severe risk of having a sex dream about a senior citizen because of a very commonly played musical instrument."

"I am not havin'-" Ginny pauses and lowers her voice when she realizes she's almost yelling. "- _ sex dreams _ about Arthur."

Ginny could swear on a Bible to that. She'd been just drunk enough to not have any dreams at all last night.

"Not  _ yet _ ," Adams shoots back, like she  _ knows _ . "Look, I know it's  _ Arthur _ , and I know you always need to be teacher's pet, especially with men since your dad left, and I know," she holds up the finger again in reply to Ginny's shocked expression, "that it has been some time since you and Wayne supposedly ended your whole," she motions with distaste, "thing. But you do not wanna be Arthur's weird-crush rebound from his dead wife, okay?"

Ginny gapes, letting out a little exhale of shock like she's been slapped. She pauses, casting around for the right thing to say. She doesn't know what it  _ is _ , whatever happened with her and Arthur last night, but she does know Adams has got it wrong without even knowing anything happened. Well, at least mostly wrong.  _ Weird crush _ might not be that far off. Still Ginny straightens her shoulders and holds Adams' gaze squarely.

"That was an unkind way to put things. But you're my friend, so I can forgive that because I know you don’t mean to be so hurtful.”

Adams deflates, curling her lip up in an apologetic wince. She opens her arms and pulls Ginny in for a hug, crushing her close. 

"I'm sooorrrrrry, I just don't want you to make choir awkward for the rest of us, okay? We can find you a man who plays violin and isn't widower who lives in a houseboat, y'know?" She pulls back and adds, "Heck, we can find you a man and make him  _ learn _ violin."

Ginny laughs it off as they get up from the sofa and Adams gathers up her purse to go. The rest of their conversation is all work related until Adams is out the door, and then it's just Ginny in charge of prepping for lunch rush.

She hardly thinks of Arthur for the rest of the afternoon.

Adams ends up getting held up and doesn’t return to the restaurant until four-thirty. 

"Okay, I'm here, go, go," Adams shoos Ginny away almost as soon as she walks in the door.

"Whew, thank goodness, I was gettin' worried! How'd it go?"

"Oh, just fine," Adams answers with a tight-lipped smile as she pokes her head in the kitchen and surveys the timing room. "I finally found a tenant for that piece of land next to the distillery."

"Oh that's so great," Ginny calls absently as she takes off her apron and hangs it up.

"You'll find out all about it soon enough, I'm sure."

Ginny cocks her head questioningly but Adams just waves her off again and Ginny's tired enough that she lets it go and heads home. 

She hasn’t heard from Arthur since that morning so she’s a little surprised to see his car parked at her house when she pulls up. She drags herself inside, feet aching from the long shift.

“Arthur?” she calls. “I’m home!”

Arthur yells something unintelligible from the living room, then appears in the doorway.

“Hello,” he pronounces carefully. 

He’s got the bottle of bourbon from the night before. It had been half-full, now half of that’s gone. Ginny raises her eyebrows and slows in taking off her boots. 

“Hey there,” she greets him cautiously. “How was your day?”

“Thank you for asking it was hellish," he slurs. "I’m sorry,  _ heckish _ . But I do actually mean hell, even though I don’t believe in it. If there was a hell, my personal hell, would be just . . . an eternity of todays.”

“I’m sorry it was such a bad day,” Ginny says. She hangs up her jacket and purse and stands with her hands on her hips. “You wanna talk about it?” she adds.

“Y’know I considered it, while I was waiting for you to get home. But I have decided to drink about it instead. ‘S’at . . . copacetic?”

Ginny tilts her head and regards him for a minute. “Let’s eat some chicken about it too, okay?”

“Yes,” Arthur kind of lurches over to her and slings an arm around her shoulders.

“Oh my, alright, come on now,” Ginny wraps an arm around his back and walks with him to the kitchen where she deposits him in the banquet at her table.

“D’you want this plain?” she asks, going over and pulling the chicken out of the fridge.

Arthur squints at her. “What are my other options, chicken-wise?”

“Well, Wayne likes to shred it and make nachos. ‘Cept you can’t call it  _ makin’ _ nachos with Wayne - he says good nachos have to be  _ built _ to get ‘em all right.”

Arthur’s resting his chin on one hand, elbow on the table, a slight curl to his lip. “Y’know,” he says finally. “If there is one single thing in this world that I would trust Wayne’s opinion on . . .”

Ginny waits. Arthur holds his hand open in a gesture of presentation. “. . . it’s nachos.”

They share a nod, and Ginny sets the oven to pre-heat. Arthur goes for another glug from the bottle. Ginny winces and quickly fills a glass of water, bringing it over and smoothly switching it in front of Arthur with the bourbon. She eyes him and takes a sip herself when he looks up indignantly.

“I gotta catch up,” she reasons.

"Right, because two sad drunk people is such a great equation," Arthur mumbles.

"What have I got to be sad about?"

"I don't know, I figured having me stay here this weekend was some kind of self-imposed penance."

"Well you'd be wrong about that, you are here out of the goodness of my hospitable Southern heart," Ginny corrects him primly.

He doesn’t touch the water, but she’s not giving the bourbon back to him so eventually he’ll end up drinking it without realizing. Maybe she’ll add extra hot sauce to the nachos for a little encouragement.

"D'you wanna hear about my day?" She asks as she shreds chicken with two forks.

Arthur groans noncommittally.

"Well, I was managin' while Adams was gone and Athanasios has been wantin' to try out a new sandwich, so . . ." She pauses for effect and looks at Arthur with a raised eyebrow. "I let him."

"You maverick," Arthur says tonelessly.

"We upsold six just this afternoon and everybody loved 'em. Well except Willie Tibbett, but he doesn't count, he complains about everything."

"He sounds smart, you should introduce us."

"Sure, you can be best friends," Ginny tosses back absent-mindedly as she lays out tortilla chips on a baking sheet.

Arthur snorts, but he drinks some water too. He's quiet for a long while, long enough that Ginny has finished the careful layering procedure she had watched Wayne drunkenly perform so many times and popped the pan in the oven to broil. She unloads the dishwasher and neatens up for a few minutes, then pulls out the nachos when they’re ready. When she's set the tray on top of hot pads on the table between them and they're both picking out loaded chips, Arthur speaks.

"I need," he starts, and pauses. Ginny waits, watching him. "A bathtub full of these nachos, and then I could bury myself in it, and asphyxiate. Doesn't that sound  _ great _ ."

". . . Well-”

“Did you know,” Arthur continues without really pausing, “that the word  _ companion _ comes from the old French  _ compaignon _ which comes from the latin  _ com _ which means together with and  _ panis _ which means bread?”

“I . . . did not, what does that-”

“S you and me,” Arthur explains, as if it should be obvious, with his mouth full. He wipes his chin with his wrist.

“. . . wait am I the bread or the . . . together?” Ginny asks, puzzled.

“Companions, people who,” Arthur motions vaguely between them and to the nachos, “y’know, bread.”

“Arthur,” Ginny says, watching him with a growing smile. “Are you sayin’ somethin’ nice?”

Arthur, in the midst of swallowing, shakes his head.

“You aaaaaare,” Ginny teases. “You’re sayin’ you’re so glad you’re heeeeere, and how I’m such a good friiieeend, and you just don’t know what you’d ever do without me.” 

She takes a big bite at the end and has to shove the last corner of the chip in her mouth with her fingers. When she looks up, hand still covering her mouth as she chews, Arthur’s staring at her, with a look on his face like-

Oh.

She quickly tears her eyes away from Arthur’s and finishes chewing, then grabs a drink to wash it all down. Bourbon, straight from the bottle, because she wasn’t paying attention to what she grabbed. She nearly coughs it all back out but manages not to with her fingertips pressed to her shut lips.

“Well,” she says, once she’s sure she can speak normally, “since I made you watch AGT last night, I guess it’s your turn if you feel like pickin’ somethin’ after we’re done eating."

Arthur shrugs but nods eventually. "Hope you like Masterpiece Theater." He catches Ginny’s eye and laughs suddenly at her incredulous expression. “Shut up,” he mutters, kicking half-heartedly at her under the table.

Ginny laughs too and nudges his shin with her toes. “I will watch whatever you want after I take a shower, I ran around so much today I feel  _ gross _ .”

“Yeah, get out of here, you’re disgusting,” Arthur calls after her as she gets up, snagging one last bite before she goes. “I'll just be here drowning my sorrows in cheese!”

“That's the spirit!” Ginny calls over her shoulder before she shuts the bathroom door.

_

  
  


Arthur suddenly can’t stomach any more food so he escapes the kitchen and wanders to Cash’s room where he flops on his back on the bed. He’s past the oblivion of drunkenness and into the delirious exhaustion of not-quite-hungover.

It had been a long, long, shitty day.

Warren The Giant - he doesn’t remember which last name it is - and his brother had met him at the boat dock that morning. The brother - Jim-Bob, because of course - had an estimate for proper disposal of the asbestos, minus the value of all remaining usable parts of the boat. Jim-Bob owns a scrapyard, conveniently. Arthur shook hands and agreed he’d have the thing emptied out of his possessions and call them when it was ready. 

Then to rent storage and hire movers, blasting Tchaikovsky on the highway. Once he was done there and got back to Conley Fork to meet with the one local realtor to see his options for rental or purchase, he'd almost just called it quits on the whole thing. Let them empty the houseboat, he could just live in the storage unit. Efficient.

There had also been the distraction of the previous night lingering on the edges of most of his thoughts throughout the day. Overall he’s not sure what to make of it. He’d been drunk, sure. So had she. The whole night is kind of bleary and hyperfocused at the same time in his mind; bourbon, and Ginny, and stupid TV, and Ginny, and bourbon. Ginny’s legs, Ginny curled up against his chest, Ginny shivering when he touched her, Ginny holding his hand and smiling up at him and kissing him.

The jury’s still out, in Arthur’s opinion, on whether there was actually anything specific in her head when she’d all but invited him to bed with her. 

On the other side of the wall the shower turns on. Ginny starts humming, and the shower curtain on its plastic rings slides back and forth. Then she starts singing.

“ _ Baby, when I met you there was peace unknown _

_ I set out to get you with a fine tooth comb _ -”

“No, no, no. You are not allowed to start a duet without prior consent!” Arthur interrupts. 

Ginny laughs, loud and bright even over the running water. 

“I will not be Dolly!” Arthur argues at her lack of response.

“Go on then, you can be Kenny!”

There’s silence, just the rush of water for a few long moments before Arthur sighs in defeat.

“Dammit. One, two, three-” he bangs on the wall for the count. 

He starts with the next verse in a hideously nasal twang, because he feels like being a dick, but also like making Ginny laugh. Even he needs a break from wallowing in grief.

“ _ You do something to me that I can't explain _

_ Hold me closer and I feel no pain _

_ Every beat of my heart _

_ We got something going on _ ”

Ginny cackles delightedly, barely pulling it together to join in for the next section:

“ _ Tender love is blind _

_ It requires a dedication _

_ All this love we feel needs no conversation _

_ We ride it together, ah ha _

_ Making love with each other, _ ”

Instead of the last “ _ ah, ha _ ” Arthur crows, “YEE-HAW!” and Ginny barely manages to wheeze through her giggles, “Wayne is that you?”

“Bring it home!” Arthur drawls, and Ginny pulls it together for the first chorus, both of them in normal voice.

“ _ Islands in the stream _

_ That is what we are _

_ No one in between _

_ How can we be wrong _

_ Sail away with me _

_ To another world _

_ And we rely on each other, ah ha _

_ From one lover to another, ah ha _ ”

Ginny’s laughing again by the end and then something thunks and she yells, “Jiminy Christmas!”

Arthur bites back a laugh. He's still feeling his buzz, and apparently Ginny is too. “Okay in there Dolly?”

“I dropped the shampoo right on my toe! It’s your fault for makin’ me laugh,” she adds.

“It’s your fault for starting a duet!” Arthur yells back.

Ginny doesn’t continue after that, so Arthur doesn’t either, just digs out his phone and swipes around idly. After another long silence he hears her humming again, but a different tune, and just bits and pieces so he can’t make out what it is. Arthur realizes the shower had gone off already at some point.

“Arthur?”

“Yeah?” he calls back quizzically.

“Could you do me a favor?”

“Uh…?” Arthur calls back, looking around the room as if he’ll find a reasonable answer to that question.

“Could you go to the dryer and get, just any towel you find? I mean a bath towel, not like a dish towel or a hand towel. Or my robe! My bathrobe is in there too, it’s pink, it-”

“Yeah, sure, good, got it!” Arthur interrupts.

The washer and dryer are in a little mudroom off the kitchen, and on the opposite wall there’s a corkboard with greeting cards, unpaid bills, and school letters pinned to it. There are also pictures of various ages, which is how Arthur comes to be standing there with Ginny’s fluffy pink bathrobe in hand, staring at a picture of a younger Ginny. 

Coming up on twelve years younger, given that Cash is almost twelve now, and Ginny-in-the-picture is  _ very _ pregnant. Probably taken on the Fourth of July, given the tiny American flag bikini she’s wearing, though since it's Kentucky, not necessarily. At a party, most likely, since there’s an above ground pool full of people in the background, and an also-younger Wayne holding a red Solo cup in one hand, his other arm wrapped across the front of Ginny's shoulders and giving a thumbs up. Ginny’s leaned back against Wayne so that the curve of her belly - and all the rest of her curves too - is emphasized in profile. She’s doing some kind of jazz hands around her belly and laughing.

“Arthur? Did you find 'em?!” Ginny calls plaintively across the house.

He can’t help but grin as he backs away from the picture. It’s the kind of picture Ginny now would probably blush at and snatch away from most people who stopped to look at it. It’s the kind of picture she would never, ever throw away, and would smile secretly at even if she did hide it rather than keep it pinned up.

When he gets back to the hallway he stands facing away to hand Ginny her fluffy pink bathrobe when the door opens a crack. He goes back to Cash’s room and flops back on the bed again. He already has a perfect mental snapshot of that picture in his brain.

Once he hears the bathroom door open and then Ginny’s bedroom door shut soundly, Arthur takes his own shower, eager to rinse away the day he’s had. He barely remembers to go get a towel for himself from the dryer. The bathroom is still humid with the scent of Ginny’s Ivory bar soap and cheap coconut shampoo. Arthur’s washing his own hair when he's startled by a set of three raps on the bathroom door.

“One, two, three!” Ginny counts from the hallway, and then she’s picking up with Dolly’s verse, right where they’d left off before.

“ _ I can't live without you if the love was gone _

_ Everything is nothing if you got no one _

_ And you did walk in the night _

_ Slowly losing sight of the real thing _ ”

“Watch out for fallin’ shampoo bottles!” Ginny tacks on at the end, and Arthur laughs, jumping in a little off cue. The words are getting fuzzy, but they both mumble through it well enough.

“ _ But that won't happen to us and we got no doubt _

_ Too deep in love and we got no way out _

_ And the message is clear _

_ This could be the year for the real thing _ ”

Arthur scrubs his hands over his face, suddenly caught off guard when Ginny’s voice sounds again, closer but muffled, like she might be leaning against the door as she sings just loud enough to be heard over the water.

“ _ No more will you cry _

_ Baby, I will hurt you never _ ”

Arthur completely forgets to come in on the third line and Ginny falters but finishes it on her own.

_ “We start and end as one _

_ In love forever _

_ We can ride it together, ah ha _

_ Making love with each other, ah ha _ ”

He clears his throat and turns off the water rather than jump into the last chorus and Ginny doesn’t either. He dries off and dresses quickly. 

She’s not there in the hallway when he opens the door, of course.

_

  
  


Ginny gives more thought to her outfit this time than she had the night before. She’s not sure whether she should treat the whole thing as a fluke or not. She doubts compared to Arthur's apparently colorful sexual experiences that anything from the night before was even a blip on his radar. She'll just nevermind about her own sex radar and how it had lit up like a Christmas tree in a January bonfire from  _ leg touching _ . And how solid he was underneath her when she'd woken up half-on-top of him later. And how his beard prickled her lips when she kissed him goodnight. And the shivery thrill when he'd just started to kiss back as she pulled away. 

Arthur’s state of mind when she got home from the Moonbow obviously hadn’t helped her figure out much about his thoughts regarding the night before. But no matter what she’s not going to look obvious by wearing shorts again. Leggings, a camisole, and a fluffy soft cardigan seem safe. She actually looks in the mirror and frets over her flat air drying hair for a moment before throwing up her hands and scolding her reflection. She's in her own dang house watching TV on a Saturday night with Arthur. With  _ Arthur _ .  _ With _ Arthur.

She'd been so busy thinking about everything else that when it pops into her head to finish the song while Arthur's still in the shower - and  _ that _ she is absolutely not thinking about in any particular way - the lyrics themselves don't occur to her at first. Who knew Kenny Rogers had that much  _ longing.  _ She's glad she doesn't have to look Arthur in the eyes for a few minutes afterwards, at least.

She cleans up the kitchen to distract herself, and hears Arthur puttering around eventually but he doesn’t come to her so she dawdles for a few more minutes before going to the living room. Arthur’s setting up his laptop on the coffee table. At least she dressed right, she sees with a little internal sigh of relief. Arthur’s wearing plaid pajama pants, an undershirt, and one of those man cardigans with a thick folded over collar. They match.

“This is cozy,” she says, eyeing the set up before she sits gingerly beside him. “What are we watchin’?”

“We are going to watch the tenth anniversary production of Les Miserables. It’s the most Disney-fied version of an opera I can stand, but we’ve got to start you somewhere.”

“ _ Start me _ ?”

“Y’know, this is the gateway drug I'll use to get you into actual good opera. This  _ is _ the dream cast. There’s no one better than Colm Wilkinson.”

“Wait, wasn’t it the same guy who played Wolverine and that circus guy?”

Arthur stares at her.

“In the movie,” Ginny prompts, staring right back. “I didn’t see it, just the posters.”

“I wish this was my house, so I could tell you to leave.”

“Arthur!”

“Please just-” he holds a hand up. “Just watch it. This is not that awful movie.”

“You didn’t think it was good?”

“Shh. That’s Colm Wilkinson,” Arthur interrupts, gesturing to the laptop screen.

They quiet to watch for the next several minutes, having talked through the beginning of the first act. She gets comfortable, pulling her feet up and folding her legs- one knee overlaps his but she doesn’t excuse herself or scoot away when she realizes, she just stays there. Might as well jump right into it tonight, she figures, and find out one way or another if it’s going to be weird. Arthur’s just leaning back to get comfortable himself and drops a hand to rest loosely on her knee. Ginny smiles to herself. Arthur taps on her knee along with the music.

“Don’t get any ideas,” Arthur starts, and Ginny stiffens involuntarily. "We're not doing this, and it’s at the bottom of your range but . . . you could do Fantine.”

Ginny blinks at him and then at the screen where a woman in a terrible blonde wig has just finished singing  _ I Dreamed a Dream _ .

"How come I have to be the lady of the night who sells her hair?" Ginny asks a little indignantly.

"She's the emotional crux, she's the impetus of the story."

"She’s dying right now! It’s only thirty minutes in!"

"She comes back later as an angel to welcome Valjean to heaven," Arthur explains.

" _ Valjean dies _ ?"

Arthur throws up his hands. "It was published in 1862, I didn't think  _ spoilers _ would be a problem!"

Ginny sits back and pouts. Arthur rolls his eyes. They watch in silence for awhile longer.

“Dwayne could do that part,” Ginny says, jostling at Arthur’s arm and motioning to Javert.

Arthur snorts, then pauses and thinks it over. “He has the vocal range, I’ve just never seen Javert played by a human teddy bear before.”

Ginny smiles fondly. “He could do it.”

“Anybody would be better than Russell Crowe.”

On the laptop screen Thenardier and his wife are strutting around, hamming it up, and Ginny laughs suddenly, pulled out of her thoughts.

"You know who that is, right?"

Arthur tilts his head at the screen for a second until it clicks. "Wayne,"

"And Adams," Ginny finishes.

Arthur snorts and Ginny dissolves into giggles, leaning into him further. Arthur squeezes her knee and she nudges back at him. She wants so badly to just ask:  _ “hey Arthur, are we just friends who cuddle now? Is that a thing?” _

Ginny thinks some more.

He's his same sad sarcastic self but it turns out he can be all . . . intimate too. And he’d sung Dolly and Kenny with her earlier and made her laugh so hard, buck naked in her own shower while he was right on the other side of the wall.

“Hey, y’know what I realized?” she says, nudging him again during an applause break. “You haven’t sung with us since Regionals.”

"Why is that significant?" he asks. “We didn't perform at Regionals, by the way, unless you mean the drag club."

"Of course I mean the drag club, don’t be obtuse. Because I remembered it, that's all," Ginny says, feeling suddenly self-conscious. “I finally got to sing  _ Ave Maria _ ," she adds, eyeing him with a little smile, thinking about his face when she'd looked up and seen him hiding behind the curtain.

"That you did," Arthur agrees with a tilt of his head. "Not quite how I planned it," he adds, laughing.

"I also thought of it because you sang with me tonight when I didn't think you would," Ginny adds.

"Oh that," Arthur shifts like he's getting more comfortable. "Well . . ." He pauses too long and Ginny tilts her head.

"Ohhh," she says, like she's just realizing it. She waits for Arthur to glance over at her questioningly, and then she winks and points to herself, coolly. "Favorite."

“You better be careful, you’re gonna wear that out.”

Ginny tsks at him incredulously, sure of herself. She may not know what the heck she’s doing with him in a physical sense but she  _ knows _ Arthur’s got a soft spot for her a mile wide, never mind how much they annoy each other. She elbows him, and he elbows her back, and they end up in a silly play fight until she’s turned toward him, almost half on his lap now, and he’s got her wrists in his hands. They both stop and stare.

“Are you still drunk?” Ginny whispers.

“Are  _ you _ ?”

“I asked you first.”

Arthur swallows and lets go of Ginny’s wrists. She sits back with her legs tucked under her, facing Arthur expectantly.

“I’m not drunk,” Arthur answers finally, watching her.

“Me neither,” Ginny says quietly. 

She can feel herself blushing, and smiling half-nervously. But it’s thrilling too, taking whatever this thing is and spilling it all out into the open. She wants him to want her and she wants to  _ know _ . Maybe she really  _ does _ just have to be teacher's pet.

Arthur breathes a little laugh out and watches her like that, quiet. He looks nervous too.

“So,” Ginny takes a little breath. “Are you gonna come over here? Or am I gonna come over there?”

There’s not even really a space between them; her knees are butted up against his leg and she’s got an elbow on the back of the couch right at his shoulder. But it sounds cool. It sounds so  _ cool _ and  _ confident _ and other things Ginny isn’t, and if Arthur’s going to turn down that amazing line, then that’s that. Nothing will ever, ever happen with them. 

Arthur blows out a breath and drops his head back to stare at the ceiling. The silence stretches and Ginny's stomach slithers up into her chest to squeeze the life out of her heart. 

Then-

“Yeah c’mere,” Arthur says, sounding a little surprised at himself.

Ginny grabs the lapels of his sweater at the same time he pulls her closer with a hand on her waist and one brushing her hair back from her face.

And then they’re kissing, just like that. Not a shy one like she’d given him last night, but a  _ real _ kiss, fast and then slow like he wants it to last. Like he wants to enjoy it. Ginny kisses every bit of her pent up want into him, every bit of nervousness and interest she didn't realize was a  _ thing _ until the day before.

He tugs her closer and she goes, easy, just takes his steadying hand and crawls over his lap to sit straddling his thighs all the while he’s kissing down her jaw to her neck. He pulls her down firmly with a hand on her hip, tilts her chin and breathes in against her neck before pulling her mouth back to his and and kissing her more - harder and deeper and just  _ more _ , both of them letting out needy little groans. 

Arthur is a  _ great _ kisser. Ginny’s not sure if she’s surprised or not . . . probably not. But it’s so  _ much _ so fast and she can hardly think, can hardly breathe, what are they  _ doing _ ? 

Ginny pulls away just barely with a gasp, hands clasped at the back of Arthur’s neck. She takes a few shaky breaths.

“Wow,” she whispers.

“Uh. Yeah,” he sighs back, staring up at her with the same slack-jawed look of shock. His hands travel gently now up her back and then down to her waist. She shifts on his lap and Arthur groans again and holds her tighter. “Shit, sorry, it’s-” he pauses and sighs, face turned up to hers, eyes closed. “It’s been a really long time,” he finishes a little sheepishly.

The momentum’s slowing already and she just sits and lets herself catch up for a minute. She can’t just bone Arthur on her sofa with no warning.

Still she doesn’t really want to get back off his lap. There's something really good about how they fit. She slides her hands up to the back of his neck and scratches up into his hair which makes him loll his head back into her touch. Before she can think about it she's leaning in to kiss him again, just because she can.

“Maybe we should stop,” Ginny murmurs between soft little kisses, completely different from at first but it's still got her so bothered she could just  _ melt _ .

Arthur hums neutrally in response and kisses her back, slowly sliding his hands up her thighs.

“I should probably move,” she mumbles smiling against his mouth. Arthur nods and hums again, grabs her ass with both hands, and it’s all Ginny can do not to full-on whimper about it. She finally pulls back only to rest her forehead against his and take a shaky breath.

“This really fast,” she says quietly.

Arthur nods. “Yeah,” he adds.

Reluctantly she climbs off of him and back to her own spot on the sofa. They sit in silence for a minute before glancing at each other again.

“I have no idea what’s goin’ on,” she blurts, motioning to the laptop screen.

Arthur laughs out loud and leans forward to stop the video and close the laptop. “We’ll try another time,” he sighs.

Ginny purses her lips and eyes him with raised eyebrows when he leans back and glances over at her. He tilts his head against the back of the sofa again and his eyes close in contemplation, his arms crossed over his chest.

“I have to go supervise movers all day tomorrow.”

“It’ll take all day?” Ginny asks.

“They’re getting everything from the houseboat and taking it to the new place.”

Ginny sits up and gives Arthur’s shoulder a little smack. “You found a place?! Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Beeeecause I was wallowing in grief and alcohol, and then we were makin’ out?” he answers, raising his eyebrows and laughing at himself.

“Right. Sorry.” Ginny rolls her eyes with a little acknowledging grin and taps his shoulder impatiently again. “So? Where is it?”

Arthur finally turns to look at her with a put-upon little smile, but she knows him well enough by now to know when he’s being evasive as a matter of habit and not because he really needs to keep every single thing to himself.

“It’s by the distillery.”

“There’s houses out there?”

“Well. There’s one. I don’t think it counts as a  _ house _ , but it is technically a legal dwelling.”

Ginny frowns. “But . . .” she realizes suddenly. “Adams’ meeting this afternoon was with  _ you _ ?”

"I made her promise not to say anything until the ink's dry."

“So you’re gonna live in that double-wide in the field next to the distillery?”

Arthur shudders and cringes. “Please never say all those words at the same time again. I can’t deal with that yet. Possibly ever.”

Ginny rolls her eyes and nudges him, feeling a little mean, “ _ Adams _ is gonna be your  _ landlord _ .”

“Don’t. Remind. Me.”

Ginny nudges Arthur’s shoulder over and over until he nudges back. “You’re gonna have a new home,” she points out happily. “That’s a good thing.”

Arthur shrugs in acknowledgement. “What, you didn’t want me to move in here anymore?” he teases.

Ginny widens her eyes at him and pretends to sigh in relief and he laughs easily at the joke. He brushes his knuckles against the side of her leg. “I think I’m gonna turn in, it’s been a long day.” He yawns into his other hand as if to prove his point.

Ginny nods and watches him, waits for him to look over. She fidgets her hands together on her lap. “You don’t have to sleep in Cash’s room.”

Arthur exhales with a considering "hm" and presses his lips together. It makes his dimples deepen and Ginny so wants to poke her finger into one but she holds back. He looks over at her and a hundred random little moments from the last several months click into place.

So maybe boning Arthur on her sofa wouldn't have been  _ totally _ random. Maybe kissing him was way less than random.

Ginny blinks and blows out a breath. Arthur raises his eyebrows questioningly at her. She shakes her head, smiles, and ducks closer to press a kiss to his mouth before standing up and tossing over her shoulder, "night, Arthur."

That's  _ two _ devastatingly cool and confident lines in one night. Ginny is on a  _ roll _ . Who knew?

When she’s brushed her teeth, gone to her room, pulled her bra off under her camisole and tossed it with her cardigan onto the pile of cleanish clothes on the chair in the corner of her room, she crawls in between the cool sheets.

She lays still and quiet, trying not to listen too hard for any indication of which way Arthur’s heading when he comes out of the bathroom. She hears the floor creak in the hallway between the bathroom and her room and lifts her head off her pillow to see Arthur, a barely visible silhouette in the darkened hallway.

“C’mere,” she says softly.

_

  
  


Arthur wakes up in Ginny’s bed with half a headache and the sounds of the dryer tumbling and a kettle whistling across the house. Ginny’s kettle. Ginny’s dryer. Ginny’s house.

So he slept with Ginny. In the literal sense; they spooned for awhile and then barely touched the rest of the night. He'd startled awake at some point to see her still curled on her side facing away from him, the silhouette of her shoulder rising and falling with each slow sleeping breath.

As quickly as his libido had kicked in when he’d had her in his lap - and she was all tense grabby hands and wound up little moans - it wasn’t just her obvious reticence that made him stop and think. What the fuck was he doing?

He’s not an idiot, he knows he’s mentally running away from the whole situation with the boat - and the impending  _ trailer _ \- by doing what he’s doing with Ginny. Even agreeing to stay with her to begin with was a choice he didn’t have to make; he could have just as easily gone and gotten a hotel room. 

But, well. She wanted him there. Wanted him in her house. Wanted him to play the violin for her. Wanted to  _ cuddle _ , while wearing those tiny shorts. Wanted him to share her bed even that first night after they fell asleep together on her sofa. Wanted him there the next night even when he was especially drunk and miserable. Wanted his hands on her and his tongue in her mouth.

Which begs the question of what the fuck  _ Ginny’s  _ doing. He can just ask her that, though. She’s remarkably forthcoming, which is both charming and overwhelming. Maybe it all tracks; she’s been gamely flirting with him for months, albeit pretty platonically. Maybe she just wants a project, or a warm body. If she’d actually sworn off Wayne for good it tracks. Arthur kind of doubts she's sown any wild oats since then.

He hadn’t ever considered that sleeping with her in the euphemistic sense might actually be an option available to him before last night. The idea had crossed his mind in a philosophical way, sure. He's always known that Ginny is ridiculously pretty. How could he not - she’s the kind of pretty that glows in every shade of light. But her earnest disposition, PG-13 mouth, and utter lack of ability to be cool, were never really his thing. Therefore  _ ridiculously pretty _ had never much phased him in a personally sexual sense.

Before.

He's not above susceptibility to a little human warmth, certainly not after the last eight months. And everything about Ginny is  _ warm _ . What’s more, he hadn’t immediately been gripped with self-loathing at enjoying a brush of pleasure without Jean, which is still a little unnerving. Differently unnerving than realizing he could just enjoy the company of a group of unlikely friends without pulling away to brood. Shouldn’t he be digging in, doubling down on missing his wife as he’s losing the last place he’d lived with her? 

It’s an option.

It’s not the only one.

Arthur finally rolls out of Ginny’s bed, and after a pit stop to relieve himself and brush his teeth, he finds Ginny.

She’s in her laundry room with her back to him, in a lacy white slip, pulling a peach-colored dress from the dryer. He leans against the doorway.

"Morning.”

Ginny yelps and whirls around, clutching the dress to her chest.

“Morning,” she returns after a moment, still clutching the dress.

“I can turn around if you want me to,” he offers, amused. “But I can tell you right now, I’ve got a mental picture a lot more complete than this.” He leans into the room a bit and nods to the corkboard with its picture of pregnant-bikini Ginny.

Ginny’s brow furrows in confusion and then she turns and searches for a moment before realizing what he means.

“ _ Oh. _ ”

“Yeah,” Arthur nods, eyeing her to gauge her reaction.

“Well. It was a party,” she explains a little self-consciously. But she's smiling too, flattered and infectious. “And . . . it was summer, so, y’know, hot.”

“ _ Yeah _ ,” Arthur agrees, grinning at her now. 

Ginny flushes bright pink, but that smile turns a little daring.

“So fancy Doctor Princeton likes a patriotic swimsuit,” she teases, finally dropping the dress from her chest to pull it on over her head. She turns and holds up her hair, glances at Arthur over her shoulder and then down at the unzipped back of her dress questioningly.

Arthur supresses an actual shiver of arousal and steps forward to do up the zipper. 

“Doctor Princeton likes this,” he mutters, drawing the tip of his index finger lightly down her spine from the base of her neck to a little patch of pale freckles between her shoulder blades.

Ginny  _ does _ shiver before she turns, eyes lit up, half her bottom lip between her teeth. Still, there’s a nagging thing in his brain: it’s not just distraction-fucking - if they ever actually progress to that - on his part, but what is  _ Ginny _ doing with him?

“Am I alone in thinking this is an idea that’s potentially . . . not without drawbacks?”

"Not since you played  _ Ave Maria _ on the violin,” she answers immediately.

Arthur laughs, shocked and shaky and hearing it so plainly. “Really, okay. Uh . . . okay.”

“Yeah,” Ginny murmurs. "And that was when we were both stone cold sober," she adds as a reminder, seeming to anticipate his next query.

“You know there are a lot of men who play violin, right? I might not even be the only one in Kentucky.”

Ginny shrugs, tilting her head at him and smiling softly. “Are you gonna round ‘em up for me then?”

“No,” Arthur answers shortly, bristling a little at the thought. 

Ginny actually leans back against the dryer, raises her eyebrows, and smiles at him indulgently.  _ Okay. _

So he kisses her.

Hands on her face, almost too much pressure at first, and after a second she breathes a satisfied little moan, and her hands come up to grip at his arms and pull him closer until he has to brace one hand on the dryer to keep from falling over her. As it is she’s pinned between him and the appliance with one of his thighs nudged between hers, one arm slung around his neck and the other fisted in his shirt like she thinks there’s any version of reality where he’s going to move from this spot without her. He might in fact spontaneously combust right here, which would be a shame if it happened before he could get her off at least once.

Ginny wraps a leg up around his hip, hitches herself up on her tiptoes and scoops her hips searchingly, groaning when he reaches down to grip at her ass and then her thigh. 

“We gotta do somethin’, Arthur, I’m gonna fly outta my skin,” she murmurs, mouth busy at his neck, his jaw, his lips.

“Yeah?”

He breaks the kiss only to pull her skirt aside, and, after glancing up to catch her emphatic nod, pushes aside her underwear and finds his way inside her quickly with a finger.

The only words he has for this would absolutely include taking the lord’s name in vain, which Ginny will probably give him shit for, so he grits his teeth and grinds the heel of his palm up for her instead.

“More, more, another- oh  _ shit _ -”

Arthur groans, gives her another finger, tries to keep breathing as she starts to ride his hand in earnest, somehow finding the leverage for it with the toes of one foot on the ground and her hips half-resting on the dryer. She’s all tense muscle and hot breath, nails digging into his shoulder and carving marks, he can feel it. 

Ginny wraps one hand around his wrist to keep him where she wants him, pressed into and against her, and her vice grip on his wrist is suddenly matched around his fingers, wet tight erratic pulsing. She’s a soprano through and through, breathy groans bright and clear; this sound is going to be his new earworm, playing over and over at every inconvenient moment.

She’s barely coming down, still gasping against his mouth when she pulls away, pushes insistently at him until he stumbles around to lean against the dryer. Ginny drops to her knees in front of him, and he lets out some kind of shocked overwhelmed noise that's not even a word. Ginny just hums in response right before tugging down his pants and taking his dick into her mouth.

His fingers are still wet from her and he swipes them impatiently on his pants before cradling her head with both hands, trying to hold on and not to buck into the soft of her cheek too hard. He’s so keyed up after her that he loses it after barely a minute when Ginny looks up at him, her pretty blue eyes lust-dark and still somehow soft and warm like she can see all his surprise and likes it.

Surprise at her - sweet church-going Ginny on her knees, and on a Sunday morning no less. Surprise at himself, that he can feel this good, still or again or after or ever. Surprise at how fast, how easy it all is, as if they’d both been waiting for it.

Ginny swallows with no warning from him and pulls off before slumping down and resting her forehead against his knee to catch her breath.

"Jesus fucking  _ Christ _ ," he blurts.

"Language,” she chides, still breathless.

He laughs out loud, breathless himself, and pulls up his pants before offering her a hand up, keeping it to pull her against him again. They linger, handsy even though they’re both still over-sensitive and shivery.

“That was-”

“Are you okay?”

“Arthur, that was-” she shakes her head and eyes him finally. “Are  _ you _ okay?”

“Yeah, I think so. I’m . . . Yeah.”

Ginny smiles, looking relieved, and ducks to tuck her head under his chin and nuzzle her nose against his throat. He clasps his hands together at the small of her back.

“Did things just get really weird for choir?” she asks in a whisper, eventually.

He’d have liked at least a few minutes to revel in his orgasm before confronting all that. Arthur takes hold of her waist again and Ginny leans into his touch. 

“Why would it?” he asks casually, knowing one hundred percent exactly why.

Ginny raises her head and gives him a look. “It’s gonna be  _ so weird _ ,” she sighs, but she sounds like she only half-cares, if at all.

“I’m fine, you’re fine, it’ll be fine,” he assures her.

It  _ will _ , for a given definition of “fine.” It’s not like he can get fired again. . . . he probably won’t get fired again. 

He cups her cheeks to pull her back in and kisses the corner of her mouth, then again with more purpose, lets his hands drop to her arms and rubs them comfortingly. Ginny nods, breaks the kiss, and steps back, starting to try to straighten herself back out again. The dress is only a little wrinkled.

“Do you have coffee?" he asks, stretching languidly.

"Just instant, cupboard above the toaster. There's hot water in the kettle." She presents herself with outstretched hands and Arthur nods. She looks positively debauched, but there’s not much he can do about that unless she wants to make it worse.

She follows him to the kitchen, finds her own forgotten cup of tea and puts it in the microwave to heat back up. He stirs his coffee, then leans back against the counter to drink it, winces, and drinks some more. Ginny’s leaned against the counter across the kitchen from him, her own cup in her hands.

"It's probably stale, I don't drink it at home all that much. You want cream and sugar?"

He waves away her offer. “Don’t you have to get to church?”

Ginny blows out a breath, looking at him for a minute with glazed and widened eyes, and nods. Arthur grins at her, probably lasciviously. He’s completely fucked, and he absolutely does not care at the moment.

“I can come help unpack after service, if you want,” Ginny adds around another sip.

Arthur thinks about that. He has movers to put all the furniture and boxes in the - he mentally dry-heaves - trailer, but it’s not like they’re going to unpack for him. Still, there’s not all that much. He knows she wants to help, he knows it’s a kind thing for her to offer, because Ginny’s kind. But a selfish part of him wants to keep everything separate, keep Ginny in some kind of contained state of friend-and-sex-partner without submitting to the ordeal of having someone  _ in _ his life to the extent she would be if she's also helping him unpack into a new place to live.

Ginny clears her throat. “Or I don’t have to, if you want to be alone. You can just let me know when you want the stuff you brought over.”

“Come by,” Arthur says impulsively. “Thank you.”

Ginny smiles just barely and nods. She sets her cup in the sink and makes her way across the kitchen, pausing only when Arthur steps into her path, hand on her waist, and kisses her soundly. Ginny touches his jaw delicately and hums into it, lets him pull away first.

“I’ll see you later,” she promises before she disentangles gently.

Arthur looks around her sunny bright kitchen after the front door closes behind her, feeling out of place. He kind of doesn’t want to leave.

_

  
  


Ginny drives with her hands exactly at ten and two on the steering wheel. There’s only one stop sign between her house and the church but she comes to a complete stop and counts to three before moving through the empty intersection. 

So maybe Arthur lightly fingered her to completion and maybe Ginny gave him a little bit of a blowjob, also to completion, thank you very much. The look on his face when he finished into her mouth was something she won’t be forgetting anytime soon. She’s got a little flutter in her chest that seems like it’s not going away any time soon. That’s alright, she decides, she’s got til the next morning until Cash is due back, maybe she can normal out by then . . . maybe that isn’t going to be so easy if Arthur’s going to be so . . . good at everything. Whether things are weird at choir now or not she'll never be able to look at his hands while he's conducting the same way again.

Part of her wants to drive home and push him down on her bed and stay there all day and it is  _ crazy _ , it’s almost a little scary how suddenly and how easily she can just think about this out in the middle of her brain where she knows about it. She hasn’t done anything this horny since Wayne, but a long time ago horniness with Wayne somehow moved into a different category in her brain and it just didn’t register the same way anymore. 

Who knows, maybe Arthur feels like she does - lit up, satisfied, and not sure if it's supposed to feel weird or not. Lord have mercy, was it good. Everything with Arthur felt  _ new _ , like it was somehow the first time she’d done any of it, just not teenage-awkward. The first curl-her-toes, gonna-make-her-blush-all-day, time. 

With  _ Arthur _ . 

Of all people, honestly. It doesn’t hardly make sense for her to be as attracted to him as she’s realized she is, objectively speaking. Sure, he’s handsome, anybody could see that - the dimples  _ alone _ . And he’s a flirt, and Ginny has always been a sucker for a flirt. She’s never much been able to flirt  _ back _ before but somehow Arthur’s jerky teasing way made it easy to give as good as she got from him. It was just Arthur, after all.

And . . . he’s really been a good friend to her, all considered. She knew he wasn't all snooty hard edges from the day he'd started tutoring Cash without even being asked. Just showed up at the Moonbow, even with supplies he wouldn't let her pay for, and chuckled at the to-go boxes of day-old biscuits she'd shove at him at the end of her shifts.

It's not that he's not actually a whole dick sometimes. It's just that . . . she knows the rest too. She knows how hard it was for him those first few months after his wife died.

Ginny swallows.

There is  _ that _ . What the heck is she supposed to do with that. It’s not like she can ask anybody else whether it's an incredibly stupid idea to do whatever they're doing  _ now _ , and Arthur’s the last one who’ll know. As smart as he is about other people’s emotions, he’s an idiot about his own most of the time. He teases and irritates and peels back layers she thought were the end of her and finds more inside, but he won’t touch any of it. Wouldn’t until now. And that was still just her actual physical insides, not the emotional-

Ginny cuts off her own train of thought with a grossed out shake of her head.

She needs Jesus.

Ginny parks in the church lot and looks in her rearview mirror to make sure she’s presentable. She is definitely not presentable. How could Arthur let her leave the house like  _ this _ ? Her hair is messy from Arthur’s hands being all in it while she went down on him. She passes her fingers over her raw lips lightly, presses the backs of her fingers against her brightly flushed cheeks. Her underwear are definitely sticky - she hadn’t thought to change them before she left. 

She does her best to make her wild hair look like it’s on purpose, digs her lipstick out of her purse and puts on two layers, and then just stares at herself in the mirror for a minute and lets out a hysterical laugh. She’s a  _ mess _ . 

She makes her way inside anyway - if she's late  _ and _ looks sexed up then everybody will know - hitching up a smile that she hopes doesn’t look insane, waving and chatting along the way to her usual pew. Thank heaven the choir’s not performing today, she would never have even made it on time to warm up.

Ginny does her honest best not to let her mind wander during Jax’s sermon, and mostly she succeeds. Of course it’s about what they can all learn from Jesus about being a good friend and Ginny really did not need a whole meditation on friendship when she'd just shared a bed and then traded orgasms with one of her best friends.

. . . that’s kind of a kick in the head.

He’s one of her best friends.

Ginny’s so lost in thought she doesn’t even bother with the harmonies when they close the service with What A Friend We Have In Jesus. She slips out before the last chorus is done and heads straight home.

She doesn’t bother eating when she gets there since she's running on nervous half-panic anyway, just pulls her dress back off - struggling with the zipper because, well, there’s no one here to help her is there? - and changes into jeans, a t-shirt, and sneakers. Next she hauls everything of Arthur’s out of her living room and packs it all carefully into the bed of her truck. She leaves the violin case for last, picks it up and cradles it in her arms, halfway through the house before she smiles to herself and stops to grab one more thing.

The drive out to the distillery isn’t long, maybe ten minutes. Ginny doesn’t let herself think about visiting back and forth outside of choir business, about more dinners or TV nights or  _ anything _ together. Cash will be back with Wayne and Dwayne tomorrow morning and she’s not about to make things even weirder for him by  _ dating Arthur _ . Nevermind that he and Cash get on so well.

In no time at all she’s turning off onto the narrow gravel path that runs, separated by a line of pine trees, alongside the paved drive up to the distillery. She frowns when she pulls up and parks, and doesn’t waste any time getting out and wading through the ankle-deep grass.

“Hey there."

“Welcome to my field of dreams,” Arthur announces, spreading his arms wide. "I built nothing, but they still came."

He’s flat on his back with one foot on the ground and the other leg flung up to rest along the back of his leather sofa, which is sitting, along with apparently all his other possessions, on what serves as the front yard of the trailer.

“So . . . what happened?”

Ginny lifts a loose flap on a hastily closed box, picking through the paper to see what's inside. A ceramic butterfly slips out, one of the ones Arthur's wife had collected. Ginny squeezes her eyes shut. She's gonna keel over from the sad-horny-sad whiplash one of these times.

Ginny tucks the butterfly back into it's paper carefully and edges away. Luckily Arthur has been absorbed in his phone.

“C’mere I’m composing my Yelp review of the pod people.”

"Pod people?" Ginny approaches cautiously and sits on the arm of the sofa since Arthur’s taking up pretty much the whole thing.

"The big box things, they bring it and put all your stuff in it, and then they store it if you don't know where you're going. I wasn't sure where I was going when I hired them, so-" he gestures with finality, as if that explains why all of his things are not in a container like the one he just described.

“Dear Pod People,” Arthur reads, “. . . actually there’s a  _ lot _ of swearing, do you want to hear all that?”

Ginny just takes the phone out of his hand and reads, her mouth dropping open in shock by the fifth word. “Arthur you can’t send this.”

He shrugs shamelessly. “What do they expect, when because of apparently several clerical errors, they decided it makes sense that I would pay for people to board a condemned houseboat hours before they were scheduled, pack up everything inside without the owner present, drive to a separate location, unload it all in a  _ field _ , and leave?"

Ginny glances down at him, shocked at the whole thing, and Arthur nods at her upside down. "Yeah, while we were-" he gestures, thankfully not too descriptively, "y'know, this morning, they were doing  _ this _ ."

“You used  _ the c-word _ in this review,” Ginny hisses at him, closing her eyes and shaking her head to try to get those sentences out of her brain.

"There’s no other way to write it, Ginny, only a cu-”

“ _ Arthur _ , no.”

“. . . would do a thing like this. It’s the only word. I won’t apologize.”

Ginny acquiesces and looks around. “So what are you doin’ now?”

“Now?” Arthur asks, reaching up for his phone. Ginny hands it back hesitantly. “Now I’m ready to hit post on this baby and then buy some gasoline and burn down a storage facility office, you wanna come?”

“Not really,” she answers mildly. She looks over at the truck and laughs to herself. “I brought all your stuff from my house,” she tells him.

Arthur doesn’t laugh, he just groans angrily, sits up, and leans forward to scrubs his hands over his face.

“My car,” he says, finally lifting his head, and motioning to it, “is right there, I could just  _ leave _ and then none of this would be my problem.”

Ginny purses her lips. “I’ll help you move everything in.”

“I don’t want your help.”

Ginny blinks. “Alright then, why am I here?”

“Because you’re  _ nice _ ,” he spits back. “Because you’re  _ hospitable _ and  _ Southern _ .”

She sits quietly and thinks for a minute. She tries one last time, “I can call Jax, he can have a whole buncha people here in an hour-”

“ _ No. _ ”

"Well  _ fine _ then!"

Annoyed, Ginny gets up, stomps over to her truck and opens the tailgate, pulls out a box, and carries it up the steps and into the trailer. She keeps going, makes a neat collection of it all in a corner of Arthur’s living room just like they both had in the corner of her living room. When the truck bed is empty she opens the passenger side door and takes out Arthur’s violin case, carries it over and holds it out to him where he’s still sitting on the sofa stewing. Arthur takes it grudgingly and sets it beside him.

She stands there, waiting, but Arthur doesn’t say anything, doesn’t even look up at her.

“Look you don’t have to stay, alright? Just,” he heaves a breath and waves a hand dismissively. “Just go.”

“No,” Ginny puts her hands on her hips. “Why are you bein’ so stubborn about this?”

“Because I can’t do this with a whole Conley Fork circus watching!” Arthur yells, suddenly. He stands up then, right in her space until she backs up a step. “The structure where I spent the last weeks of my wife’s life, the place where she  _ died _ , is going to be ripped apart, and all our belongings are sitting on the ground like garbage!”

Ginny swallows, hands dropping from her hips, and backs up another small step.

“I do not need the vapid bullshit of this place filling my head right now,” Arthur continues, red in the face and ranting now, “I don’t need  _ you _ being all-” he throws a hand up and stops abruptly. He turns his back to pace away from her a few steps.

Ginny bites her lip hard and blinks away the tears suddenly flooding her eyes.

It’s ugly. All of it. It’s enough to turn anyone ugly right along with it.

She’s stuck rooted to the spot for a really long time, it feels like, before she just decides, and moves. She goes over to the sofa and sits. She can hear the rustle of the grass when Arthur turns around, but he doesn’t come back, and she doesn’t look over her shoulder or say anything. She just sits, leans back, crosses her legs, and gets comfortable. The leather is warm in the sunshine and she’s a little sweaty from carrying everything, but a breeze comes through now and then, and that feels good.

It feels like forever. Arthur doesn’t make a sound. She’s not sure if she can feel him staring at the back of her head or if she’s imagining it.

Then the grass is rustling again and Arthur’s standing in front of her. 

“Is it okay if I sit?” he asks, his voice hoarse.

Ginny nods and shifts a little for him to sit next to her. He doesn’t sit back but leans forward, elbows resting on his spread knees and his hands fidgeting together.

“We didn’t make it to the hospital. Not that she would have let me take her by then.”

Ginny’s eyes fly up to watch the tense line of Arthur’s shoulders. Her chest goes cold and her throat closes up.

“She just went to sleep . . . didn’t wake up,” Arthur continues quietly, staring out toward the even line of pine trees. 

Ginny uncrosses her legs and scoots forward, lays a hand on his arm and the other on his back. Arthur keeps going like he can’t stop now.

“I woke up in the middle of the night, no reason, y’know? But she’d. I missed it. I was asleep.”

“Oh darlin’,” Ginny murmurs, barely able to get the words out. She tips her forehead against his shoulder, wraps her arms around him as much as she can and squeezes. She can feel the hiccupy breaths jerking in and out of his chest even though he’s silent except for a rough swallow. 

She holds tight until his breathing eases again.

Arthur clears his throat and rests a hand over Ginny’s arm that’s wrapped across his chest.

“I’m sorry I yelled at you,” he says, his voice carefully even. "None of that was about you."

“Come on, if I were in your shoes I’m sure I’d be pouring gasoline at that storage place myself by now.” 

“No you wouldn’t,” Arthur says softly.

“No, I wouldn’t,” Ginny agrees.

She nudges her chin against his shoulder and sniffles. Arthur exhales something a little bit like a laugh. Ginny presses closer, tugs her arm out of his grasp to cup his cheek and kiss his temple. She rests her forehead against his jaw, so square and stubborn and strong.

Arthur takes a big breath in and lets it out slowly. She keeps on rubbing his back.

"You still want me to go? It’s alright if you need to just do this yourself."

"No. I don't want you to go."

"Okay." 

So she stays.

_

  
  


They sit there huddled together for a while longer until Ginny inhales and pats his back briskly. "Come on then. Get movin', get some wind on it." 

Arthur would much rather drink until he passes out, and if it’s on his sofa in the fucking field by the distillery, then so be it. Ginny gets up and waits expectantly until Arthur reluctantly pushes himself up from the sofa too. They haven’t even moved anything and he feels like his body’s full of lead.

After they've made a few trips back and forth with a box each, Arthur pipes up,

"Isn't it get some  _ wind _ on it, like winding a clock or a watch?"

"No, y'know, get outside, move around, get some wind on it. Breeze." Ginny peeks into an unmarked box before picking it up and handing it to Arthur. "That goes in the kitchen."

"I don't think that's a saying," he protests. "Is it another Kentucky colloquialism?"

"Arthur just cuz you haven't heard of it doesn't mean it must be a  _ Kentucky thing _ ," Ginny chides him, picking up another box and brushing past him.

"I'll grant you that -"

"Oh you will?  _ Thank you _ ," Ginny interrupts. She leans back against the door to hold it open for him.

Arthur squints at her in frustration as he goes through, pausing to really stare her down, give it the full effect. Ginny’s eyes light up, like she was hoping she could irritate him back to life after his few minutes of abject devastation. It’s a little mortifying how well she knows him

"I don't accept your assertion, Google it," he argues.

"You Google it, Professor," Ginny raises her eyebrow and juts her chin at him.

" _ Doctor _ ," Arthur corrects, setting his box on the kitchen counter to one side of the sink.

"Not a doctor of sayings everyone knows," Ginny mutters.

Arthur can only huff out a laugh and wait til she catches his eye to smile half-heartedly. He’s lagging, he’s sad, he’s exhausted and still leftover-angry, but they’re here, and she's trying. He can try.

They get everything in, somehow. Maybe Arthur’s being dramatic but he wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d keeled over from a heart attack at some point. But Ginny is way stronger than she looks - he’d be intimidated if he wasn’t so grateful - and  _ gritty _ in a way he’s never seen from her. It’s . . . a lot. As if his eyes weren’t still adjusting to the new light he’d started to see her in that weekend. 

Once they’ve gotten the last two boxes in, they both collapse on the sofa, sweaty and panting.

“I think my stomach’s turnin’ inside out,” Ginny sighs. 

Arthur grunts in return. He thought he was tired before, but now he’s got his eyes closed and except for the full body pounding dehydration headache, he could drift off right here until tomorrow at least. 

"I might just sleep til my body starts breaking itself down for nutrients.”

“Y’know what I want?” Ginny asks drowsily.

“What?”

“The sandwich Athanasios made yesterday. Shredded pot roast, mushrooms sauteed in butter and pickle juice, homemade spicy ketchup, all on a pretzel bun.”

“I’m so hungry I’m not even going to question the pickle mushrooms. You wanna go now?”

Ginny looks down at herself, bedraggled and sweaty, and then back up at Arthur. 

He grimaces. “I don’t suppose you brought a change of clothes, and you could just shower here?”

Ginny’s eyes snap to his and she falters for a moment. “I didn’t assume I was  _ staying _ here, I figured . . . well, it’s your new place. I figured you wanna settle in on your own.”

Arthur shrugs and looks around. “I think I’ll have plenty of time to sit around here by myself. I really only go to choir practice and wherever else you people drag me for your shenanigans.”

“We don’t do  _ shenanigans _ -”

“Capers,” Arthur suggests.

“Ooh like the Great Muppet Caper! I love that movie.”

Arthur runs his hands over his face, pushing his glasses up to his forehead in the process. “How am I so attracted to someone with such ridiculous taste in movies,” he groans.

Ginny sidles closer and pokes him in the stomach to make him come out from behind his hands and look at her. When he drops his hands his glasses fall back to his nose crooked. Ginny rights them gently. Arthur watches her through the lenses.

“We watched your choice of musical already,” Ginny points out, “I think-”

“Uh, we did not watch it all the way through.”

“Well, we had good intentions,” she allows, smiling.

“Did  _ we _ ?”

“Of course, I’m a respectable woman." Ginny lays her head on his shoulder.

Arthur snorts but doesn’t dissent further. He rests his cheek on the top of her head and sighs. “Mischief,” he adds.

Ginny hums in response before raising her head to kiss him slowly. “I should go home,” she mumbles against his lips.

“Shut up,” Arthur pulls away to say clearly, then leans back in to catch her mouth again, which she allows for a few long beats before pushing him off.

“Arthur I’m disgusting.”

Arthur grumbles and acquieces, turning to lean back again and close his eyes. “You wanna get dinner later? For real?” he asks casually.

“Tonight?”

“Yeah. You go clean up, I’ll unpack enough to find clean clothes. And soap."

When she doesn’t answer immediately Arthur looks over to see Ginny slouched back just like he is with her eyes closed too. 

“Five more minutes,” she mumbles.

“Hey,” he reaches over and grabs her knee gently. Ginny rolls her head toward him and opens her eyes. “Since you're half asleep and might not remember this later . . . Thank you. You didn’t have to do . . . any of this.”

Ginny smiles slowly and shrugs her shoulders up. “S’ just what you do.”

“No, it’s what  _ you  _ do,” he corrects. He casts around for the words for a minute. He feels a certain obligation to . . . Figure things out now, before. Anything else. “I haven’t thought . . . I mean I didn’t  _ plan _ -” 

Ginny laughs outright. “Yeah, me neither.”

“And I’ve got . . . baggage.”

Ginny rolls her eyes, “No really? You? I never woulda guessed.”

They watch each other quietly for a long moment before Ginny looks down at his hand on her knee. She sways her leg back and forth a few times under his hand, not dislodging it. Arthur grips her knee and sways it back and forth himself, feeling fidgety.

“But,” she continues, staring up at the ceiling contemplatively, “everybody’s gonna be so weird about us . . . havin' dinner.”

“Oh we’re not telling anybody. No. Were you planning on going steady? I don’t have a letterman jacket.”

“See this is why we just shouldn't tell anybody, how'm I supposed to deal with your nonsense  _ and _ all theirs?" 

She shoves him on the shoulder for emphasis and he lets the motion jostle him away but falls right back into her space, leaned against her from shoulder to knee. He drops his head back and looks up at the ceiling too.

"Yeah, that's a fine idea for the four days it lasts until your neighbor with the binoculars outs us, that's a great plan."

"Oh Millie already told Adams when she saw us movin' your stuff in the garage." 

Arthur throws up one hand and lets it drop. “There you go, we’re already cooked.”

“Yeah I figured lettin’ you pretend for a day or two mighta been funny.”

Arthur digs his fingertips in around the back of her knee until Ginny yelps and kicks him away. Arthur pulls his hands back to his own lap.

Ginny swallows audibly. "Cash gets back tomorrow."

"Oh shit. You've got a kid."

Ginny hums a humorless laugh. "You forgot."

"Come on, I didn't  _ forget _ , you know what I mean."

“I know,” she murmurs. “I just don’t know how all this works, with . . . everything.”

“I-”

"Helloooooo, happy housew- oh hi Ginny!"

Arthur and Ginny both startle when Jax bursts in through the screen door.

"When you left before the service was over we didn't know where you got off to, but," Jax throws up his hands, "surprise! Here you are!"

Ginny laughs nervously and bounces up from the sofa to throw her hands up too, "surprise! I'm just helpin' Arthur move, y'know I didn't really have anything to do with Cash gone with Wayne so. Gotta keep busy! Idle hands are the devil's playground or somethin' okay I'm gonna get another box."

She ducks past Jax and right out the door. Arthur stares after her, trying to smooth his face back to normal when Jax turns back from staring after her too.

“She might have a touch of heat stroke, y’know . . . lifting. Things,” Arthur mumbles. 

He stands too, trying to quickly catch up from the fog of exhaustion and the murky conversation he’d just been having with . . . whatever Ginny is to him now. Whatever, he’s too old and tired for labels. She’s Ginny. The rest will figure itself out.

“Okaaaaaay,” Jax segways agreeably, “well, I brought a little something-”

“I will not accept any decor crucifixes or paintings of Jesus.”

“Oh just open it,” Jax pushes a heavy gift bag at him and Arthur takes it suspiciously, going over to set it on the counter first before he starts fishing things out of it. There’s a box of salt, a loaf of white bread, and a bottle of wine. Arthur smiles.

“Bread that this house may never know hunger, salt that life may always have flavor, and wine that joy and prosperity may dwell with you forever,” Jax recites, nearly vibrating with joy.

“Thank you Jax. This is very sweet.”

Jax glows at the thanks, but also glances over his shoulder and then back at Arthur. “Are you  _ sure _ Ginny's okay?”

Arthur frowns. “Ginny’s fine, why?”

Jax waves him off, “Oh nothing she just seemed a little out of sorts at church this morning. So,” Jax claps his hands together, “what can I help with?”

Arthur sighs. As people go Jax is actually the most palatable, besides Ginny and Cash, but with Ginny hiding outside remembering there are no more boxes to bring in he’s got to do something to get Jax out of the way before he realizes something’s actually up with her. Even if Ginny’s neighbor hadn’t seen them, Arthur is quickly realizing there's no way  _ Ginny _ can keep a secret for more than about six hours. 

He claps Jax on the shoulder. "Hey thanks Jax, really. You must need to take off though, isn't there an evening service?"

"I'm happy to help, you've got all these boxes to-"

"Oh I can help with that, don't be silly!" Ginny interrupts, a tad forcefully, as she comes back in.

"Yeah, aren't you not supposed to work on the Sabbath or something?" Arthur asks.

"Actually, it's  _ remember _ the Sabbath and keep it holy, and if we're splitting hairs-"

"Oh you know Arthur never met a hair he could resist splittin'," Ginny pipes up.

Arthur gives her a look and she gives it right back and raises an eyebrow.

". . . the Sabbath was technically Friday sundown to Saturday sundown for the Jews, so we're good!" Jax finishes, glancing between them. He titters nervously. “But you know what, it’s never too early to start on next Sunday’s sermon. If you’re sure you don’t need any help?”

“Yeah, I’ll be fine, thanks again Jax,” Arthur walks with Jax to the door, and Ginny follows along, seeming to consciously keep a three foot distance between herself and Arthur at all times.

When Jax is safely driving back toward the main road Arthur turns to find Ginny poking through a box set on his small rickety kitchen table.

“I don’t know how there are this many boxes, did you have stuff somewhere else besides my house and the houseboat?”

“I guess the pod people were very cautious packers, if nothing else.” Arthur walks slowly over, hooking an arm around Ginny’s waist and dragging her along as he goes to lean against the kitchen counter. Ginny stands with her feet between his spread ones, her arms draped around his shoulders.

“You freaked out,” Arthur points out.

“Not . . . too bad. Not as bad as when I accidentally told Adams about the violin.”

“Why would you tell Adams-”

“By  _ accident _ .”

Arthur sighs.

“Oh just stop,” Ginny shakes her head, and leans in to kiss him.

She’s going to think she’s winning so many arguments this way, Arthur bemoans to himself. He pulls her closer anyway, and licks into her mouth just to hear the little mew of surprise she makes every time.

_

  
  


“Arthur, wait, wait-”

Ginny presses her hands on his shoulders to hold herself steady and makes herself just breathe for a minute. Somehow they got here so much faster than she expected, and it was so  _ easy _ .

Not getting from the kitchen to Arthur’s bedroom - that included a lot of almost braining themselves or each other by knocking into things along the way since neither of them would pay attention to anything other than kissing and taking their clothes off. They succeeded at most of that before stumbling onto Arthur’s bed. She’s thanking her lucky stars they’d bothered to put the frame together and the mattress on with a sheet before they’d collapsed on the sofa earlier.

Now here they are. She doesn't even care they're both gross with dried sweat, strung out on exhaustion, muscles all but spent. Arthur doesn't seem to mind any of that either.

“What’s wrong?” he asks breathlessly. 

She’d taken his glasses after they pulled off his shirt, right before he’d sat on the bed and tugged her down onto his lap. Now she’s staring right into his dark brown eyes, and they’re so sharp and distractingly focused on  _ her _ .

“Before . . . I mean if we’re gonna-” Ginny swallows, and dithers. Obviously she’s never put much focus on this part of . . . things, before. Obviously.

“What is it?” Arthur’s asking. He skims his fingertips up her arm, tugging her fallen bra strap back up to her shoulder before he sets his hands on her waist again. “Do you not-”

“Condoms,” Ginny blurts. “I finally learned my lesson that last time with Wayne, I’m not trustin’  _ anybody _ to pull out, alright, I-”

“Ginny,” Arthur half laughs, and tugs on her bare waist to get her attention.

“What?”

“I had a vasectomy years ago.”

“You did?”

“Yeah. I mean we never wanted kids, so.” 

“So we could just-?” Ginny asks, feeling dumb and stuttery. She can’t remember what a vasectomy exactly  _ is _ right now, even though she knows she must know.

Arthur nods in answer. “I can’t get you pregnant.”

“. . . oh.”

Arthur couldn’t  _ know _ what hearing that would do to her right then, just like Ginny couldn’t either, until she heard it. She’s gotten a really gross amount of spunk on her clothes - or in her hair - over the years from Wayne pulling out at the last possible second. Most of the time.

But now-

Ginny has never,  _ ever _ , been more turned on in her entire life.

She kisses Arthur again, lets her hips grind over his lap and eats up his overwhelmed groan at the same time she reaches back to unhook her bra and toss it aside. Arthur answers that with another overwhelmed groan and she smiles against his mouth, shivers against his big warm hands all over her. 

She pushes him to his back on the bed and gives up bracing herself up to kiss him. Instead she presses her chest against his, kisses down his throat to his collarbones, and squeezes at his hips with her thighs. Arthur reaches for the waistband of her underwear and just about rips them off of her. Ginny hears herself moan helplessly at that - she maybe should not be as into it as she is, but she’s only human. She pulls it together to help him off with his boxers, gasping into his mouth when they fall back together.

She’s impatient for everything suddenly, needy and focused like she’s never felt, not even when she and Wayne were sneaking around having quickies in closets in high school, or again a few months ago.

Ginny meets Arthur’s eyes almost by accident right as she’s sliding herself onto him without a pause or a thought or a doubt. She looks down at him right when they’re both caught breathless, right when everything changes forever  _ again _ .

He pulls her into a slow rhythm, so slow she’s going to lose her mind, he’s coiling her up like a spring and she’ll fly off into the ceiling the second he lets go, but he’s got her by the hips, gripping so tight it almost hurts, better than anything’s ever hurt, so tight that even when he lets go she’ll know where he held her.

He won’t last long, she’s guessing, and it’s fine because she’s pretty sure she's going to just turn inside out or explode into a million tiny pieces or something, soon enough. Ginny pushes up enough to brace her hands on Arthur’s chest, to grind down in hard little circles, to smile breathlessly at his pained expression. His fingertips dig into the flesh of her hips and he bucks up beneath her and it happens so suddenly that she’s caught off guard and digs her nails in, holds on and closes her eyes and listens to his voice mixing with hers, the both of them overwhelmed and surprised together. 

_

  
  


“I’m still hungry,” Ginny mumbles into Arthur’s shoulder, startling him awake from a heavy doze. “I should get home and clean up,” she adds, lifting her head just enough to nudge her nose against his ear. “Hey,” she whispers.

“Yeah,” he answers distractedly, not fully awake but suddenly too alert.

Ginny struggles up to brace herself above him and look down at his face. “Arthur?”

“Mm?”

“Are you okay? Arthur-”

He blinks up at her familiar blue eyes, her hair a mess all around her face, cheeks flushed bright, lips raw from him.  _ Oh _ , he thinks foggily. Just,  _ oh _ . Suddenly it feels like he hasn't been here for any of the lead up to this, not really. Like he just fell into it and woke up now after days of trudging along without thinking where he was going, or how far.

“Stay," he says hoarsely.

“Okay, I-”

Arthur ignores whatever she’s saying, just pulls her down and rolls them, half-pins her underneath him and lays his head on her chest, not for any reason but to feel her breathing.

“Stay for a minute. Okay?” 

He feels her short exhale, feels it when she realizes why. Ginny curls around him and reaches up to card through his hair gently. “I’m not goin’ anywhere,” she promises quietly.

He holds her so tight it must hurt, but Ginny never says a word about it, just lays there with him in their mess on his bed in the trailer in the field next to the distillery in Conley Fork, Kentucky. 

Where it all ended. Where it all began.

_

  
  


“Well  _ hello there _ folks, how y’all doin’ tonight?”

“Just  _ fine _ Adams, thank you.”

“Anywhere’s fine,” Adams gestures to the empty restaurant and squints at Ginny speculatively, then at Arthur with a lot more suspicion as he follows Ginny to his usual booth, hands in his pockets.

“Can I start you off with-”

“Coffee, and keep it coming,” Arthur interrupts, already flipping his cup over expectantly.

“I do not understand how you can drink coffee at  _ night _ ,” Ginny interrupts his interruption.

“Would you rather my head explodes in three seconds, because that’s what’s going to happen if I don’t have some caffeine.”

“It’s just gonna dehydrate you, then see how tired you get when you can’t fall asleep tonight,” Ginny mutters to her menu.

Adams rolls her eyes so hard on her way over to get a pot of coffee she almost runs into the counter.

“Heeeeeeeyo, the boys are back in town!” Wayne busts through the Moonbow’s door, singing loudly. “Back me up boys!”

Cash and Dwayne trudge in wearily behind him as Wayne goes into an air guitar solo, voicing the opening riff with “dweeeer, de-neeeeeer, deeeeeeer”s. He does the first verse, dancing and strutting along the way to the counter.

“ _ Guess who just got back today _

_ Them wild-eyed boys that had been away _

_ Haven't changed that much to say _

_ But man, I still think them cats are crazy _ ”

Wayne keeps at it while Cash and Dwayne each collapse into the booth with Ginny and Arthur, respectively. Ginny wraps Cash up in a hug and is about to say hello and ask how his trip was when Wayne whips around, having done the air guitar riffs again, and launches into the next part of the first verse. He finally notices Ginny and sings to her with a lot of finger guns and hand motions:

“ _ They were askin' if you were around _

_ How you was, where you could be found _

_ Told 'em you were livin' downtown _

_ Drivin' all the old men crazy _ ”

Arthur chokes on his coffee and Dwayne quickly claps him on the back a few times. Once Arthur’s recovered he catches Ginny’s eye across the table. She purses her lips at him but she can’t help but grin. Wayne, now kneeling on the booth behind Ginny and Cash, pops up like a jack in the box and jostles them each by the shoulders trying to get them to sing along on the chorus. Cash puts his face down on the table.

“Dad,  _ please _ I’m  _ so tired _ !”

“He had some gummy worms on the way home,” Dwayne starts to explain in a long-suffering tone.

“Oh Dwayne why’d you let him eat those! You know how he gets,” Ginny asks, raising her voice to be heard over Wayne’s second guitar solo.

“I forgot and let him go into the gas station by himself, he said he had to use the bathroom.”

“If he really had to pee he’d just find a bush, I told you,” Cash mumbles, still face down. Ginny pets his hair worriedly, startling when Wayne twirls by, ad-libbing a falsetto run:

“ _ You know that chick that used to dance a lot _

_ Every night she'd be on the floor, shakin' what she got _ -”

“WAYNE,” Adams barks, finally coming out from the kitchen. 

Wayne doesn’t miss a beat, just turns his solo on her, dancing over to stop in front of Adams and pick up the rest of the verse.

“ _ When I say she was cool she was red hot _

_ I mean, she was steamin' _ !”

“Wayne, shut the hell up, it is Sunday afternoon, people are in  _ church _ .”

“They ain’t in church  _ here _ ,” Wayne argues dejectedly, but he lets Adams wave him off to sit at the counter where he spins on his stool.

“So,” Ginny says, jostling Cash’s shoulders until he reluctantly lifts his head from the table. “How was your trip?”

“Good.”

“Didja see the museum?”

“Yeah.”

“Well how was it?”

“Cool.”

Ginny throws her hands up in exasperation and folds her arms, sitting back in the booth and looking to Arthur for commiseration. He shrugs at her mildly.

“How were your weekends?” Dwayne asks politely, looking at Ginny and Arthur in turn.

“Yeah Ginny, how  _ was _ your weekend, and Arthur how was  _ your _ weekend, separately?” Adams yells from the kitchen. She comes out behind the counter only to sling a plate of fries down in front of Wayne.

“Hey no fair!” Cash pipes up, “Auntie Adams, how come he gets to eat first?”

“Because the potatoes will soak up some of the sugar so I don’t have to  _ beat his ass _ ,” Adams answers, glaring at Wayne as he eats happily.

“Don’t think that’d shut me up quite the way you’d want it to but you’re welcome to try.” Wayne grins at her and winks.

Adams grimaces at him for a long moment, holding her hands up and shaking her head before she turns and goes back into the kitchen without a word.

“I’m sorry, you were saying, about your weekend?” Dwayne asks Ginny.

Arthur shrinks back into the corner of the booth, sips his coffee again, and kicks Ginny not too hard in the shin. She kicks him back, too hard.

“Oh it was fine, thanks.”

Silence falls over the table for a long moment before Arthur clears his throat. “Yeah me too. Fine.”

Dwayne nods along, confused.

“Now you guys,” Adams comes out with a full tray balanced on her shoulder and starts setting plates out. “Athanasios has been talking my ear off about this sandwich so I need you all to try it and tell me if it sucks, okay?”

Ginny sits up straight and kicks Arthur repeatedly until he sits up too and hisses, “okay, stop, I get it!” at her as quietly as possible.

“Really, we get to be  _ the very first _ to try a new recipe,  _ wow _ , y’all isn’t this  _ exciting _ ?” Ginny cranes her neck to wink and throw a thumbs up at Athanasios across the restaurant. “So what’s in here, ooh, is that shredded pot roast, oh yum!”

Arthur sighs heavily into his own sandwich, but when Ginny nudges him, gently now, in the ankle, he nudges her back.

Later, they walk out to their cars together. 

Cash was falling asleep on the table and Wayne was still going strong when Adams finally kicked him out so they left together, Wayne promising to let Cash go to sleep once they got to his and Dwayne's place. Dwayne went along since they rode together, and Ginny and Arthur slipped out quickly after, rather than risk Adams cornering them for questioning.

"So," Ginny starts, standing at the driver side door to her truck across from Arthur, who's leaning back against his car with his hands in his pockets. "We had dinner."

Arthur bobs his head in incredulous agreement. "We ate food, in the same place, in the early evening." 

“Is that . . ." Ginny takes a breath and squares her shoulders. "Was this just for the weekend? Or are we really doin’ this now?" 

“I don’t know, are we?”

“I asked you first,” she whispers with a smile before sobering. She fidgets with the strap of her purse over her shoulder. “We didn't really get to finish talkin' about it earlier when Jax came."

“Why would you want to? Y'know . . . have dinner. With me,” he asks quietly.

Ginny laughs softly and looks away, out at the street and the lit windows of the Moonbow. “Well, call me crazy but I like hangin’ out with you when you’re not being a dick,” - she smiles, he sighs in acceptance - “and you're one of my best friends. And . . . it’s good with us. Don’t you think?”

“Yeah. It is good. Better than I . . . well. Hey can we stop the  _ dinner _ thing and just call it . . . y'know-" Arthur gestures, lost for any possible words to say next.

"What? Not  _ goin' steady _ ?"

"No-"

" _ Courtin' _ ?"

"Ew, no."

"Playin' backseat bingo."

"God, you're embarassing."

"Makin' time."

"Are you secretly  _ older _ than me? Also, were you workshopping on the way here? There's no way you just had those ready to go."

Ginny just rolls her eyes, steps forward, and wraps her arms around him, tucking herself against his chest and nudging her head down under his chin. Arthur hugs her back.

"Good talk," he says quietly.

Ginny digs her chin into his shoulder.

"I'm glad we kinda sorta talked about it at least, because I put somethin' in your violin case and it was gonna be really awkward if you just wanted this to be a weekend fling."

"Really awkward? What is it, a ransom note?"

Ginny pulls back enough to look up at him, just to lower her eyes and blush. "That picture."

Arthur frowns for a minute before realizing. "Oh,  _ that _ picture."

Ginny shrugs, but she's smiling hard too.

"Well . . . I'm honored." Arthur manages to say, blushing a little himself.

A car drives by not far from where they're standing between their parked cars.

"This is gonna be in the newspaper tomorrow isn't it?" Arthur sighs, eyes closed in resignation.

"Breaking news, Ginny Hawlings is Arthur Cochran's  _ favorite _ ."

"Yeah, favorite pain in the ass." He jostles her in his arms until she meets his eyes through the quick-falling dusk. "As if anybody didn't know that already."

Ginny smiles and waits for him to lean down and kiss her. 

He does.


End file.
